Gingerbread wars in Europe

Now the Italian food police are after my cultural heritage!

The Italian version of FDA is concerned that Swedish gingerbread has too high levels of coumarin. Coumarin constitutes the skeleton of many flavanoid compounds, or to put it more succinctly, coumarin is the building block of many flavorings we use in our food, such as cinnamon. The Swedes don’t really think it is a problem, but then the Italians probably haven’t discovered Surströmming yet, which is fermented herring, the smell alone should concern the food police.