East coast Italian transplant to Colorado raises a stink about local Italian restaurant's menu item, one thats been there for 80+ years. I've dined at the Blue Parrot on many occasions, even had the wopburger a time or two. Now, due to his intolerance & meddling the uniqueness of Louisville is diminished.
Burger's name stirs a beefWopburger tasty but not tasteful, critics complain
By James B. Meadow, Rocky Mountain News
May 12, 2007
As controversies go, this one isn't exactly a whopper. It's more of a - well, let's just say it's about a wopburger and what happens when the menu at an iconic Louisville restaurant collides with ethnic sensibilities and political correctness in the 21st century.
And, essentially, what happens is the icon blinks first. Which is why the menu at the Blue Parrot restaurant will soon offer an "Italian burger" instead of a you-know-what burger.
How, you ask, could something as benign - to say nothing of tasty - as a "sausage patty with melted cheese served with sauce" ignite an ethnic flap? Well . . .
It all began about 1919, when Michael and Emira Colacci, fresh from Campobasso, Italy, decided that opening a restaurant in Louisville made sense. A place for coal miners - of which Michael was one - to eat, to be comfortable around fellow paisanos.
The you-know-what burger's name wasn't an ethnic slur. It was, Michael and Emira's granddaughter would insist 88 years later, "A nickname. It just meant they were Italian, proud to be Italian."
At least that's what Michael and Emira thought. At least that's what their son Joe and their grandchildren Joan and Richard thought. And, apparently, it's what generations of locals like Chuck Scarpella thought.
Scarpella, former head of the Louisville Society of Italian Americans, says the you-know- what burger had "been there all my life. My grandma worked in the Blue Parrot. My mom worked there, I worked there, my kids worked there. It's never been offensive."
OK, so maybe over the years, a few eyebrows had been raised, concedes State Rep. Paul Weissman, a Blue Parrot bartender for 18 years. "But after it was explained that it had been on the menu for 88 years and the tradition behind it, people were fine."
Until about a month ago.
A transplanted East Coast Italian-American named James Gambino came in, saw the item on the menu and, says Joan Riggins (nee Colacci), "really raised a stink. He said he was offended and demanded we take it off the menu."
Gambino admits he was "shocked," but remembers "politely" speaking to the Blue Parrot. "They basically laughed at us."
Then the April 13 letter from the Washington, D.C.-based National Italian American Foundation arrived. The one in which NIAF Chairman Dr. A. Kenneth Ciongoli wrote he was "alarmed to learn" of the you-know-what burger being on the menu. "Perhaps you are not aware that this is a pejorative term that insults the Italian American community," he added.
No way, thought Riggins, to Ciongoli's renaming suggestion. "This is our business." Apparently, the Boulder Valley School District didn't agree.
Gambino, who complained to the NIAF, also took his case to the school district, which, it seems, had been happily buying Blue Parrot sauce for 10 years and using it in its lunch program.
"We love using the product," says Linda Stoll, director of food services for the school district. "It's 100 percent natural, exactly the kind of product we want."
When Stoll learned the Blue Parrot had a you-know-what burger on its menu, she called Richard Colacci, a restaurant owner and boss of the sauce operation.
"I explained that the district is very proud of our stance on ethnic equity issues," recalls Stoll, adding that the you-know-what burger "didn't conform to the way we felt about those issues."
Then, "I asked if they would consider renaming the item."
Although Colacci admits, "I was kinda shocked" that "someone was so upset," he adds, "I understood her point of view 100 percent if they were getting that much heat."
Stoll says she never threatened to terminate the contract, which accounts for about 4 percent of the Blue Parrot sauce operations. Any sauce cessation "would have been a decision requiring more people than me."
Although he takes pains to praise Stoll's cordial tone, Colacci said, "She presented it to me in a very straightforward manner. We had to make the move on the menu or possibly lose their business."
Colacci spoke with his sister and nephew. The next day he called Stoll back. The Blue Parrot would have new menus as soon as they could be printed. Commerce had trumped a menu tradition.
And about time, says Gambino.
And yet, for some there is sadness. " . . . It's hard to take," says Colacci. "But it'll still be part of our history."
Try telling that to his sister.
"I'm so angry," says Riggins. "I feel like there's been a death in the family."
And so, perhaps the best way to end this tale is with a bowing of heads, a moment of silence, a gentle sigh and a slow exit, leaving behind just this menu epitaph:
The Wopburger
1919-2007
R.I.P.
Source:
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0%2C1299%2CDRMN_15_5533877%2C00.html 
