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Italian mayor rails against spaghetti bolognese: 'It's fake news'

Clare Speak
Clare Speak - [email protected]
Italian mayor rails against spaghetti bolognese: 'It's fake news'
No spaghetti bolognese please, we're from Bologna. Photo: depositphotos

The mayor of the city of Bologna has launched an online campaign to raise awareness of the fact that spaghetti bolognese is not something people in Bologna actually eat.

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It may be loved around the world, but spaghetti bolognese is actually hard to find in Italy - at least outside of tourist-oriented restaurants.

In Bologna, where many people believe the dish to be from, you're much more likely to find tagliatelle al ragù on a restaurant menu - thicker strands of pasta in a thinner tomato sauce.

READ ALSO: The original recipe for authentic bolognese sauce

Asking for spaghetti bolognese instead may not endear you to the locals. And now the mayor has apparently had enough.

Virginio Merola, of the centre-left Democratic Party, vented his fury on social media at foreign restaurants that "shamelessly" serve the popular pasta dish - which he branded "fake news."

He shared a photo of a noticeboard advertising spag bol as the "specialty of house" (sic) at £6.95, saying the photo came from London.

Merola asked people on Twitter to share their own photos of spaghetti bolognese being sold around the world, saying he was collecting them for his campaign.

And he got plenty of replies.

One was outraged over what appears to be instant spaghetti bolognese in Copenhagen.

"I don't know what kind of crap is in it," he wrote.

There was an entry from Moravia, Czech Republic, which had committed the double crime of advertising bolonske spagety, or spaghetti bolognese, and a surely-inauthentic lasagne. 

But one user pointed out that culinary horrors aren't only found outside of Italy.

"I'm more horrified by the menus of certain restaurants in Italy," they wrote. "Tortellini in ragu. It sends a shiver down my spine."

And another shared a photo of his lunch, prepared by his mum using leftover ragu - penne pasta in what looks a lot like a bolognese sauce.

"Try telling her that it doesn't exist," he challenged the mayor. "If you have the courage."

READ ALSO: Ten 'Italian' dishes that don't actually exist in Italy

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