The town of Lucca, Italy is being accused of “culinary racism” for denying licenses to new non-Italian restaurants. Presumably, the foreign restaurants now operating will be allowed to stay. Lucca located just north of Pisa is trying to protect its rich culinary tradition.

Lucca’s municipal council ruled that “with a view to safeguarding culinary traditions and the authenticity of structure, architecture, culture and history, establishments whose activities can be tracked to different ethnicities won’t be allowed to operate.” The Tuscan regional government has warned against “gastronomic or culinary racism”.

The ban applies to fast food outlets and food stalls whether they sell kebabs or pizza. This means no new Middle Eastern restaurants or Chinese take-out and hopefully no new McDonalds. The ban is only on restaurants located within the old walls. Lucca has one of the largest McDonald’s that I have ever seen (it is outside the town walls) so there is no need for another one located anywhere near Lucca.

The Paper Moon is the ninth book in Andrea Camilleri’s Inspector Montalbano series. Montalbano is the food loving inspector from the Sicilian town of Vigàta.

Paper Moon finds Montalbano in his normal melancholy mood, this time worried about his seemingly deteriorating memory and general fatigue that has set in. In fact, he now finds that he needs to set his alarm clock each morning rather than waking to his inner clock as he has done for most of his life.

The mystery here centers around a pharmaceutical salesman, Angelo Pardo, found dead in his rooftop sunroom with his zipper open. There are secret bank accounts, drugs, discrete and indiscrete love affairs and the musings of Montalbano on how two beautiful women could be involved in such a case. As is often the case in this series there is the suggestion of Mafia involvement in the circumstances surrounding the murder.

The loss of life in the L’Aquila Italy earthquake is difficult to comprehend. When you think about the impact of the earthquake on survivor’s lives you have to wonder how they even start to rebuild their lives after the loss of their families, friends, homes and so much of what they find familiar.

The entire landscape of the area around L’Aquila has changed because of the earthquake. Churches that were passed every day are cracked and damaged. The shop where bread was bought is closed perhaps forever. Schools loud with the noise of children stand crumbled and silent.

Italy has a long history of earthquakes some the result of volcanic eruptions. We read about the devastation from these historic events. We look at the damaged ruins with a detached eye.

The next time we visit Pompeii or the towns and cities near Mt. Etna that have been destroyed and rebuilt over the centuries we should stop and think about L’Aquila. The year may be different but the results are the same – parents mourning the loss of children, children who no longer have parents, homes buried under debris, lives forever changed.

As reported by ANSA, the Italian news organization:

(ANSA) - Rome, April 6 - Monday's earthquake in L'Aquila caused ''huge'' damage to the medieval city's artistic heritage, Heritage Ministry Secretary-General Giuseppe Proietti said. The apse of the Abruzzo city's largest Romanesque church, the 13th-century Basilica di Santa Maria di Collemaggio, had collapsed ''from the transept to the back of the church,'' he said.

The Basilica, with its famed pink-and-white jewel-box façade, was the site of the coronation of Pope Celestine V in 1294 and thousands of pilgrims still flock there each year.

The Porta Napoli, the oldest and most beautiful gate to the city built in 1548 in honour of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, was destroyed in the quake.

There were also concerns for the National Museum of Abruzzo, which is housed in the 16th-century castle.

Created in 1950, the Museum unified the collections of the civic and diocesan museums as well as a private collection of paintings from the 17th and 18th centuries and includes a beautifully preserved fossilised skeleton of a prehistoric elephant found near the town in the 1950s.