The passing of Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini last month opened a torrent of memories for me. I started following Petrini’s writings in the late 1980s and even met him on a few occasions during the seven years I taught at Slow Food U., also founded by him.

But the news of his death also triggered a powerful memory from my early years in Italy: McDonald’s in Rome.

According to legend, Petrini was inspired to create the Slow Food movement after he protested the opening of the “first” McDonald’s in Rome. It was actually the second. The first was launched, quietly, in Bolzano that same year. But the one in Rome became the arch nemesis of terroirists and anti-globalists because the American behemoth had planted its first highly visible outpost at the foot of one of Italy’s most iconic landmarks — the Spanish Steps.

When I first got to Italy to study in 1987, my American classmates and I craved American fast food, partly to assuage the homesickness. After all, the world was way less connected back then. Email was just beginning to emerge. International calls were prohibitively expensive, especially for students. You felt entirely disconnected from your home.

America fast food was a way to “feel” like home for a fleeting moment.

Italian students liked fast food too. At the time, the only option was Burghy, a McDonald’s like restaurant. The only one we could access was the location in the Florence train station. Trips to Rome always included a visit to the Spanish Steps franchise.

Three decades later, I couldn’t believe my eyes when I arrived at the Milan train station to see the above ad for Joe Bastianich’s line of sandwiches.

A genuine peripeteia! A restaurateur who made his name by serving rich Manhattanites authentic Italian cuisine had now gone to the “dark side” of food. Incredible.

It all seems laughable, especially today. But it does make me sad to remember what a 13-year-old told me some years ago. She was the daughter of a friend from university days. They live in downtown Milan and summer in the alps. When I asked her what her favorite food was, she told me it was the new sandwich from KFC.