"It's not bologna.""But, it's like bologna, right?"
"It's not bologna."
A few weeks ago, a sandwich made with a deli meat with a macabre-sounding Italian name, mortadella, was the obvious choice for lunch over the other sandwiches made with more mundane meats. While the name alone was enough to get me to pick the sandwich, I had no idea what mortadella was.
The chef explained that it was ground, cured, and encased pork which has been spiced. He added that it was similar to bologna, but differed because of the presence of cubes of fat within the meat. As you can see from the picture above, the fat is fairly prominent. My own research later revealed that mortadella must contain consist of at least 15% fat cubes and that it originated from Bologna, Italy.
As I shared this newfound knowledge with a lunch-seeking coworker, the manager of the cafeteria passed by and just happened to hear me say "It's like bologna."
"It's not bologna," he interjected.
"But it's like bologna, right?" I negotiated.
"It's not bologna."
While insisting it was not bologna, he did not deny it was not like bologna. It may be common to mince words at a law firm, but please, not in the cafeteria! What causes a man to be so adamant distinguishing mortadella from bologna? Was there a mortadella lobby? Turns out, there is.
The Consorzio Produttori Mortadella Bologna (Mortadella Bologna Product Consortium) established in 2001, along with the Ministero delle Politiche Agricole e Forestali (Ministry of Agricultural and Forest Policies), regulates the quality of mortadella, and promotes and protects the mortadella name. The consortium is made up of 30 companies who produce about 95% of the mortadella. From where does this consorzio derive its authority to execute its mission? From where mortadella name derive its right to protection?
Many food and wine products are named for their place of origin. For example, Bordeaux wines are named as such because they are produced in the Bordeaux region of France. Parmagiano-Reggiano cheese is from the Parma, Reggio Emilia, Modena, Bologna, in Emilia-Romagna, and Mantova regions in Lombardy, Italy.
Countries in Europe have had a history of protecting, within their national boundaries, the name and reputation of their regionally produced food products. The government offered a certification to products which met defined geographic and quality standards. This certification assured the consumer that the product they were purchasing was a genuine product of a certain quality from that region. In France, the certification system is called Appellation d'origine contrôlée. The Italians call their system Denominazione di origine protetta.
The name used to identify a product from a particular place is the geographical indication (GI).
In 1992 (a strange date since the EU did not come into existence until 1993), legislation came into force in the European Union which offered the opportunity for products which enjoyed protection as national geographical indications to be protected throughout the European Union. The purpose of the legislation was to protect the regional products of a EU member country in an increasingly borderless economic environment.
The legislation created a number of categories under which protection could be sought:
- Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) - the product must have been "produced, processed and prepared in a given geographical area using recognised know-how"; for example, Roquefort cheese (France), Jersey Royal Potatoes (UK)
- Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) - the "geographical link must occur in at least one of the stages of production, processing or preparation. Furthermore, the product can benefit from a good reputation"; for example; Welsh lamb (UK), Scottish farmed salmon (UK)
- Traditional Speciality Guaranteed (TSG) - -does not refer to the origin but highlights traditional character, either in the composition or means of production "(Mozzarella cheese, Jamón Serrano.
The official IGP seal (in Italian)
The European Union has certified mortadella as a Protected Geographical Indication, or in Italian, "Indicazione Geografica Protetta". Along with the Istituto Nord Est Qualità (Northeast Quality Institute), the Consorzio Produtttori Mortadella Bologna ensures that the anything being sold under the mortadella name is indeed mortadella. A producer of a mortadella-like product in Spain may not call his product mortadella.
Following the trend towards a more global economy, the territorial coverage of protection of geographical indications has expanded. In 1994, the World Trade Organization (WTO) introduced the Agreement of Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS). The agreement dictates that member states must "provide the legal means for parties to prevent the use of any means in the designation or presentation of a good that indicates or suggests that the good in question originates in a geographical area other than the true place of origin in a manner which misleads the public as to the geographical origin of the good." In other words, each WTO member must offer laws which prevent a producer from passing off his product as being from some place which it is not. TRIPS does not offer additional criteria for what qualifies for protection or new categories of classification. It simply requires a means of protection.
What about enforcement? A producer, or a representative of a producer, such as the consorzio, is able to bring suit against an imitator in a national or European court. However, it's not entirely clear to me what enforcement options there are under TRIPS. Must each WTO member have to recognize the GI of another member state? Could the consorzio bring a suit against an American company which made and sold a product named mortadella? Some people I spoke to who are familiar with trademark law were not certain the Italians could.
I can't be certain whether my mortadella was actually mortadella. From appearances, it fit the description of mortadella, but I'm not able to tell without seeing the packaging. Was the mortadella like bologna? Yes, maybe a little spicier, and definitely more fatty. Was it bologna? If it was a true mortadella, then technically, no. The bologna we know is ground pork sausage made from lesser quality scraps of meat which does not contain cubes of fat. There is not much information on the internet concerning the origins of bologna, but it does appear that the Italians do not use the term "bolgona" in reference to encased meat sausages. Bologna, at best, is a poor imitation of mortadella.
I'm pretty sure that the manager of the cafeteria was not thinking of protecting the good name of mortadella when he corrected me. I think he was simply trying to not give the impression he was offering bologna as a deli meat. Either way, the consorzio thanks him. And I thank him for making me think about my lunch.
Update 6/18/08: I was told that the mortadella was made by an American company in the style of mortadella. So, technically, it was not mortadella.
Sources:
http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/foodqual/quali1_en.htm
http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/hungrymind/designationorigin.html
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-mortadella.htm
http://www.foodreference.com/html/fmortadella.html
http://www.foodsubs.com/MeatcureCC.html
http://www.lifeinitaly.com/food/Mortadella.asp
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indicazione_Geografica_Protetta
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographical_indication
http://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/legal_e.htm#TRIPs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bologna_sausage
http://theoldfoodie.blogspot.com/2005/12/some-baloney-about-bologna.html
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