Muslim food makes inroads into Italian cuisine

Jennifer Carlile Reporter • Profile • E-mail

FLORENCE, Italy — Italian cuisine is prized worldwide, with bistecca alla Fiorentina — or Florentine steak  — a must for meat-loving visitors to this city. The succulent, mouth-watering, porterhouse cut reappeared in restaurants this year, after a nearly five-year hiatus due to mad cow disease.

While it was shelved, butcher shops carrying Muslim halal meat opened their doors to the city. And now, despite being a quintessentially Tuscan dish, some of the Florentine steak served in homes and restaurants here follows Islamic dietary restrictions.

“At least seven restaurants buy Florentine steak from us,” said Palestinian Mustafa Abu-Zahu, as he butchered cuts of beef at his family’s halal Mini Market near Florence’s basilica of San Lorenzo.

“They feel that our meat is fundamentally more flavorful,” he said on a recent afternoon, adding that some believe “it’s better for the health.”

Palestinian flags and ornate pages from the Quran decorate the back wall of the Abu-Zahu family store. Pork-free spicy sausages made of turkey and beef line the refrigerator, and fresh sand-colored Moroccan bread is delivered in crates. Rose and orange blossom water, Egyptian fava beans, Tunisian halva, glass tea cups with gold filigree, nargila smoking pipes, and 5 kilogram boxes of Berber couscous crowd the shelves.

Non-Arab foreign foods like American peanut butter (which is a rarity in Italy), soy sauce, and Dijon mustard, are displayed in another section of the store.

With Europe’s Muslim population growing rapidly, halal butcher shops and restaurants are becoming more commonplace, and there is an increased cross-over between Muslim and non-Muslim cuisine. In France, Beurger King Muslim offers halal meat in an American-style burger joint, and 13 out of the 57 Nando's Portuguese-style chicken diners in Britain are halal.

While France and Britain have a long history of immigration from their Muslim-majority ex-colonies, Italy — which invaded East Africa and Libya, but had far more emigrants than immigrants until recently — has only had a sizeable Muslim population for 15 years. But, with around 1 million Muslims now in the country, halal foods are making inroads into the local cuisine alongside North African and Middle Eastern spices.

Halal, haram, and mushbooh
Halal describes foods that are lawful for Muslims to consume, according to the Quran, sayings of the prophet Muhammad, and writings of Muslim jurists. Haram foods are unlawful and prohibited, while mushbooh foods are questionable, and are therefore avoided by many Muslims.

The principle haram foods are pork and pork products, meat from scavengers, and alcohol. Jello and marshmallows are examples of mushbooh foods, as they may contain gelatin obtained from pork. While some Muslims go to great lengths to avoid traces of haram foods, such as the alcohol in toothpaste and soy sauce or enzymes in colorants, many are less rigid in their diet.

“Our meat is killed in the Islamic way,” said Mustafa Abu-Zahu. The animal is not stunned or shot before being slaughtered, instead “the throat is cut and the blood drains out.”

“The animals are the same; they are all from here in Italy. Before killing them they say ‘in the name of God’ and then they kill them — that’s the difference between our meat and Italian meat,” the 30-year-old said.

“The Jews slaughter their meat in almost the same way as us,” he said, adding that “if halal food’s available, Muslims should eat it, second best is Jewish food, and third is Christian.”

Mustafa is the youngest of three brothers from Bethlehem — the others being 40-year-old Marzouq and 36-year-old Mohammed — who run the 2-year-old Mini Market behind Florence’s covered central market and outdoor leather jacket stalls.

There are five halal butcher shops in Florence, all of which have opened within the last five years, while there are several dozen more in the big cities of Rome and Milan.

All of the Mini Market’s meat comes from three slaughterhouses in Italy, where professional Muslim butchers from Morocco and Egypt work in the same buildings as Italian butchers, according to Mohammed.

The Muslim sectors of the slaughterhouses and the Mini Market have been certified by the Islamic Community of Florence and Milan, which checks that the animals are killed according to Islamic law and that no pork products have contaminated the areas where it is killed, packaged, or by the knives used on it.

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