An unusual interview today on Thoughts on the Table! Yvette from Crazy Italians restaurant in Memphis found my page while looking for references on authentic Italian food. We started chatting and I discovered that not only did she and her husband Giampaolo open a successful restaurant, for over a year they have been producing amazing short videos featuring their daughters Azzurra and Lucrezia to help introduce continental Italian food to North America. Since I know you’re curious, here are a few of my favorite episodes: Bruschetta, Who is Alfredo, Carbonara, Pomodoro, Salad dressing.
In the podcast, Yvette, Giampaolo, and 9-year old Azzurra share their story and describe the laborious process of video production which involves the entire family, including some funny behind the scenes!
Yvette, it was great to get to know you and your family – thanks again for your fantastic contribution in letting the world know about the real food of Italy. And for this, please accept the Cannolo Award!
I came to Vancouver in 2001, right after getting my Electronic Engineering degree. I had a six-month contract as a software engineer, joining an Italo-Canadian development team. Naturally, I was very excited for the professional experience that awaited me, but I was even more excited for the opportunity to discover a big new city in an enormous new continent – along with its language, its culture, and its food!
During my first few weeks, I trusted my Italian coworkers for food recommendations. They had been living in Vancouver for over a year already and had developed a liking for a pool of Asian and south Asian restaurants, but also for some Ethiopian and Greek establishments. I always loved discovering new cuisines, so I was happy to follow my coworkers around (also because I didn’t quite miss Italian food yet). During those days I learned how to use chopsticks and got to try a whole range of new dishes, including sushi – still one of my favorites.
When on my own, despite trying to expand my horizons to North American food, I kept going back to foreign food. Thinking of it, this is probably because “ethnic” restaurants were meant for foreigners – there, I could order my meal simply by pointing at a picture on the menu, or by reading the number next to it. In North American restaurants, instead, my Caucasian physiognomy was probably deceiving with regards to my language challenges – people expected me to speak English and therefore adjusted my words to their closest logical interpretation. This sometimes resulted in a different dish being brought to me instead of the one I ordered, like that time I was served a Caesar salad instead of a sesame salad, simply because I didn’t know the final ‘e’ in sesame is not silent.
Eventually, through trial and error, I learned how to order food. But I wasn’t totally immune to misadventure. One day, being quite desperate for something a bit more familiar, I stumbled into a McDonald’s and I distractedly ordered: “One cheeseburger and a beer.” In Italy every McDonald’s sells beer, so I mechanically assumed it would be an option in Vancouver as well. The guy at the till probably thought I skipped a word and gave me a burger and some kind of pop. Even though I realized quickly that it wasn’t beer (the fact that it came with a straw gave it away), I wasn’t really in a position to complain, as you can imagine. As I was eating my burger, I gulped down this strange soda. At first, I didn’t mind it, then I started experiencing the horrible feeling of having swallowed a cup of mouthwash! It took me months to realize that that day I had my first root beer. As of today, that root beer was my last!
I then moved from the hotel where I was staying into a small apartment. The kitchen wasn’t fully operative, but it had a microwave oven, so I thought I could try to cook some food for myself. Wandering around in a Superstore, I came across these large frozen “ravioli” filled with potatoes and cheese (the bag probably had the word ‘perogies’ written on it, but it didn’t register with me). The instructions on the package said that these dumplings could be cooked in the microwave, so I was hopeful they would be OK. I was completely wrong! These big, puffy semicircles were made of a thick, chewy dough which, despite having followed the cooking instructions, was definitely way undercooked and tasted quite funny. I ended up squeezing out the filling and eating it like mashed potatoes*.
“I was especially fascinated by the “marbled” one in which bright orange and pale orange cheese are twirled together.”
While at the Superstore, something else caught my attention. I noticed some big blocks of orange cheese, which I recognized as the same cheese that McDonald’s puts in its cheeseburgers. I had never seen the “real thing” in block-form before, and I was especially fascinated by the “marbled” one in which bright orange and pale orange cheese are twirled together. So, after the perogies disaster, I went to the fridge hoping to improve my meal by finishing it with a piece of cheese. Well, that night I realized that this crustless, rubbery orange product is not something you want to just eat with bread like you would for a piece of Fontina or Scamorza… it’s so dry that it’s almost impossible to swallow, and it really tastes quite bland.
After a few months of sushi, dim sum, moussaka, chicken korma, and unsatisfying cheese, my excitement for new foods was starting to wear off. One day, I suddenly craved pasta. Luckily, I happened to walk past a restaurant chain called: The Old Spaghetti Factory. Of course, I didn’t expect to find my mom’s pasta there, but I also didn’t expect it to be too different from it. After all, a pasta dish is a pasta dish, right? Not at all. I had found a completely different kind of Italian food. I was outraged! Spaghetti and Meatballs, Chicken Pesto Penne, Linguini Alfredo… I had never heard of any of these dishes when I was living in Italy. I had discovered a parallel universe!
“A pretty unappetizing one […] the portions were too big, the pasta was either drowning in sauce or looked pale and overcooked, and the sauces looked overly rich.” A pretty unappetizing one as well… the portions were too big, the pasta was either drowning in sauce or looked pale and overcooked, and the sauces looked overly rich. I ordered something which seemed a bit more familiar to me, clam linguini, but even that dish didn’t compare at all with the one I knew. I thought that maybe I had ended up in a strange “fusion” restaurant, but the more I looked around for other Italian restaurants, the more I became aware that they all served the same kind of unfamiliar dishes. “Don’t they know that Italians very rarely make spelling mistakes? It’s a phonetic language!”
Looking more closely at some of these self-proclaimed Italian restaurants, I was particularly surprised to find a slew of spelling mistakes printed on their menus, which I actually found quite offensive. Don’t they know that we have spell checkers in Italy? Don’t they know that Italians very rarely make spelling mistakes? It’s a phonetic language! In a few cases, I almost offered to correct the menus myself, but then I realized that maybe these errors were for the best after all, since they acted like unintentional warnings to native Italians, hopefully sending them off to the Chinese restaurant next door, perhaps with an equally misspelled menu, but that they would have never been able to call out.
Meanwhile, my first work contract had ended and I was offered a full-time job, which I actually still hold now, 15 years later. During the following years I kept running into distorted Italian food, and somehow Italian food was becoming even more popular in Vancouver. In 2010, I decided to have some fun and start a pretentious blog aimed at fixing Italian food in North America. In my opening post, I wrote: “I will say the proper ways to write the names of Italian dishes. And, from what I know, I will also try to say how the dish should look and taste… for sure I will say how the dish most definitely *shouldn’t* look or taste!”
This was just the beginning, though, and as I continued blogging my initial rant turned into something a bit more useful. I started investigating the root differences between the food of Italy and the food of North America, which are as much in the ingredients as in the culinary culture. I also learned that Italian-American food is a cuisine in its own right, historically rooted and not less authentic than the cuisine of Milan. However, I think that Italian-American food should be labeled as such, and I hope that going forward more restaurants and chefs will celebrate it by calling it out on their menus instead of labeling it as generically “Italian.”
Since I started the blog, however, things have begun to change. I am not sure I can take credit for it, but it’s indisputable that thanks to YouTube and true Italian food blogs people can get accurate descriptions of all kinds of cuisines directly from the people who grew up eating them. In this changing landscape, more and more Italian restaurateurs are discovering that they can be successful outside of Italy without compromising by adapting their menus to local expectations. As a result, the Italians abroad can more easily find the Italian food they’re familiar with.
I think that the new global awareness is also reflected in an increased availability of ingredients. Naturally, North America’s produce is still very different from the Italian because of climate and composition of the soil, but, at least in big cities, it is now easier to find Italian grocery stores and to cook traditional continental Italian without having to substitute any key ingredients. Overall, I don’t see this as globalization, but quite as the opposite – it’s a phenomenon which validates local realities and traditional cuisines, ultimately preserving them in their immense richness and protecting them from accidentally merging into one another. Cross pollination and fusion cuisine will of course still happen, but, hopefully, they will become more deliberate than they have been in the past. _____ * It took me years, but I eventually came across properly cooked east European perogies and discovered that they are actually delicious.↑
This article is about “Italian” dishes, products, and terms that don’t actually exist in Italy – true Italian myths like Spaghetti with Meatballs (an Italian-American creation), Caesar salad and Italian soda (successful inventions of Italian immigrants), Fettuccini Alfredo, Italian Wedding Soup and “Al fresco” dining (specific Italian items mistaken as traditional).
Despite their Italian roots, these products don’t represent today’s Italian dining and, in that regard, they can’t be considered authentic. However, they are historically important and offer interesting clues on the North American interpretation of Italian food.
1. Spaghetti with (big) meatballs
Probably the biggest Italian myth, widely featured in many Italian restaurants in North America, spaghetti with (big) meatballs are practically absent in Italy. Meatballs on their own, instead, with their many variations, are found almost everywhere in the country under the name ‘polpette’ (from ‘polpa’, pulp).
How did meatballs end up on spaghetti, then? A similar dish with small meatballs on noodles still exists in parts of southern Italy. As a possible explanation, with their arrival in the big American cities, Italian immigrants found a wider availability of meat and quickly switched away from their vegetable-centered diet. Their deeply rooted craving for pasta, however, didn’t abandon them. As the Italians were being assimilated into the American culture, they also started to favor a large single course (as opposed to multiple smaller courses) and more intense use of spices (especially garlic and oregano). This resulted in the combination of spaghetti and meatballs in a rich tomato sauce, which turned into the iconic dish known in North America.
2. Fettuccini Alfredo
Another big Italian myth is Alfredo sauce, along with its most famous use in Fettuccini Alfredo. The name “Alfredo sauce” is almost completely absent in Italy, although there are plenty of pasta sauces that are similarly based on the combination of butter and Parmigiano. For instance, egg noodles, gnocchi, and meatless ravioli (e.g.: with mushrooms, truffles, or ricotta and spinach) are often served with melted butter (sometimes infused with fresh sage) and grated Parmigiano. This type of finish simply goes under the name of “al burro”, with butter. In Rome, egg noodles with butter and Parmigiano are often called “alla Romana”, Roman-style.
Why is this sauce so famously called “Alfredo” in North America, then? The history behind it is well known, though parts of it are mixed with legend. In 1914, Alfredo di Lelio, a Roman restaurateur who was popular among American tourists, named his butter and cheese linguine after himself. According to the legend, the dish caught the attention of early Hollywood actors Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, who were in Rome for their honeymoon. When they returned to the US, the actors introduced the dish to their Hollywood friends, making it famous. In 1943 Alfredo di Lelio sold his restaurant, but the new owner kept the menu and is still in business under the name “Alfredo alla Scrofa“. In 1950, Alfredo di Lelio and his son opened a new restaurant in a different location and called it “Il vero Alfredo“, the real Alfredo, which is now managed by Alfredo’s nephews. Both restaurants are popular with North American tourists that want to taste the original Alfredo recipe. Besides these two restaurants, in Italy, “Alfredo” is just a first-name (Alfred).
3. Italian soda and Italian cream soda
As one can easily imagine, there is nothing called “Italian soda” in Italy. And there is also nothing that tastes like it. Italy only has a handful of traditional sodas, the main ones are ‘aranciata’ (orange-based), ‘gassosa’ (clear, intensely sparkling and with a sweet lemon flavor), ‘cedrata’ (from the citron fruit), and ‘chinotto’ (based on the uniquely flavored chinotto citrus). North American “Italian sodas”, instead, come in a wide variety of flavors (e.g.: cherry, raspberry, pomegranate, grape, peach, strawberry), all of which tend to be sweeter and more intense than their Italian counterparts.
How did Italian sodas happen, then? Probably from the Sicilian tradition of making refreshing drinks by pouring small amounts of concentrated syrups in iced still or sparkling water, or on shaved ice (which is what the Italians call a ‘granita’). The most popular flavors are lemon, mint, tamarind, ‘orzata’ (almond flavored), and ‘amarena’ (from sour black cherries). It appears that the Torani Company, a famous syrup maker from Italy, introduced Italian sodas in 1925, in San Francisco, by adding their syrups to soda water. The drink that resulted was well received by the American palate, and more flavors were then added.
If Italian soda is not really Italian, then “Italian cream soda” is even less so! Industrially made cream soda is usually flavored with vanilla, a pastry-like aroma that would be strange to Italians in a drink. In some North American bars and cafes, cream soda is made by adding cream to carbonated water, which sounds even stranger if not utterly disgusting to any Italian.
4. Caesar salad
With absolutely nothing to do with the well known Roman emperor, numerous sources trace the creation of Caesar dressing back to the 1920s and attribute it to Cesare Cardini, an Italian immigrant who owned restaurants in California and in Mexico. According to the legend, chef Cardini came up with his famous dressing by combining leftovers that he found in his kitchen: romaine lettuce, olive oil, garlic, raw egg, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce (which is lightly flavored with anchovies), and Parmesan. The dressing quickly became popular with visiting Hollywood’s celebrities and Cardini expanded his business into large-scale production. In 1948 Cardini trademarked his recipe, but he couldn’t patent the “Caesar Salad” name because it was already entrenched in popular culture. When he died, his daughter Rosa took on the business and worked on expanding the Cardini brand, which she then sold to a third party.
Despite the fact that the flavors in Caesar salad meet the Italian palate, this dish is unknown in Italy except for a few restaurants that cater to a North American clientele.
5. Italian wedding soup
Italian wedding soup is a completely misrepresented dish, not as much for the “Italian” adjective, but for the “wedding” one. There is no wedding soup in Italy – soups are generally humble dishes that lack any festive connotations. The name, in fact, likely comes from a mistranslation of ‘minestra maritata’, married soup, in which vegetables (escarole, cabbage, endive) and meat (sausage or meatballs) symbolically marry in one single dish.
6. “Al fresco” dining
Although the Italian words “al fresco” are a common way to say in the freshness of the outdoors, the association between “al fresco” and outdoor dining is not particularly strong in Italy. In the hot Italian summers, dining outdoors is a treat for many. As a result, restaurants often feature patios and gardens or obtain authorization to set up tables on the sidewalks. Despite this, the phrase “mangiare all’aperto”, eating outside, is far more common than “mangiare al fresco”, possibly because “al fresco” also carries the negative connotation of meaning in jail.
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