While Hungary's allegedly xenophobic nationalist opposition is internationalist enough to serve Mexican jalapeño poppers at their campaign breakfasts, the country's supposedly foreigner-friendly Socialist-Liberal government seems to be waging a war against imported food. The leader of the inquisition is Agriculture Minister József Gráf, the severe man pictured above left in an official portrait, and tentatively examining a baked chicken leg offered by Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány. Judging from his official biography, Gráf is exactly the sort of crusty apparatchik that leads right-wing Hungarians to say that the Commies are still running the place. And judging from his recent food-related comments, he is exactly the sort of Hungarian politician that local gourmands should be up in arms against.

When he joined the current government, Gráf famously promised to "sweep the trash out of food stores." And by trash, he apparently meant "imported food." He has gone on record saying that local food retailers should limit their sales of imported items to no more than 30% of their local turnover, and makes little secret of his desire for the state to shovel out support to domestic food producers faced with competition from abroad (read: from superior or better-value products).

Last week, he turned up the heat by saying, according to a report on penzcentru.hu, that only people who "like risk" should buy foreign food products. While in one sense this is a pretty chilling example of scare-mongering (and scare-mongering that probably runs counter to Hungary's European Union obligation) as with most things coming out of the mouth of Hungarian politicians, it's more comical than scary. Not least because Gráf made his comment about the risks of eating foreign food while pimping a car rally aimed at promoting the virtues of Hungarian food. Here's to hoping his next demonstration of the dangers of foreign food involves eating a plate of high-fat Hungarian sausage while jumping off a bridge.