MYTHS
12 Things Americans Believe About Italian Food That Italians Have Never Heard Of
We love you. We do. But we need to talk.
1. Spaghetti Bolognese
Bolognese is from Bologna. Bologna is in Emilia-Romagna.
In Bologna, ragù is served with tagliatelle — fresh, egg-based, wide enough to carry the sauce properly. Spaghetti Bolognese does not exist in Bologna. It does not exist in Italy. It exists on your menu, and we are choosing not to comment further.
2. Chicken Parm Is Italian
Parmigiana is eggplant.
It is always eggplant. The chicken version was invented in America by Italian immigrants who could finally afford chicken and missed home. We respect the hustle. We do not recognize the dish.3. Fettuccine Alfredo
There is a restaurant in Rome called Alfredo alla Scrofa where a man named Alfredo made fettuccine with butter and parmesan for his pregnant wife in 1908.
Americans found it, loved it, and took it home. What arrived in the United States was a different dish entirely — heavier, creamier, unrecognizable.
The original still exists in Rome.
It is butter and pasta.
It is perfect.4. Garlic Bread
Italy has bruschetta — grilled bread, rubbed with raw garlic, finished with olive oil.
Italy has fett'unta — same idea, Tuscany. Italy does not have a foil-wrapped loaf of bread soaked in garlic butter sitting in a basket next to your pasta.
That is an American invention and it is, genuinely, quite good. Own it.5. Italian Dressing
We have asked around.
Nobody in Italy knows what this is.
The bottle in your refrigerator with the herbs floating in vinegar and oil — there is no Italian grandmother behind that recipe. There is a food manufacturer in New Jersey.
The dressing is fine.
The name is fiction.6. Cappuccino After 11am
In Italy, cappuccino is a breakfast drink.
Specifically, it is a before-10am drink. Ordering one after lunch signals to every Italian in the room that you are a tourist. After noon, you drink espresso. After dinner, you drink espresso.
The milk does not come back until morning.7. Meatballs on Spaghetti
Polpette exist. They are small, they are served as a second course, and they sit alone on a plate like the dignified dish they are. They do not sit on top of spaghetti. The spaghetti comes first, separately, as its own course. The image on the Lady and the Tramp poster has caused decades of confusion and we are still processing it.8. Sugar in Tomato Sauce
If your tomato sauce needs sugar, your tomatoes are wrong. San Marzano tomatoes are naturally sweet.
Good olive oil rounds out the acidity. Twenty minutes of cooking does the rest. Sugar is a symptom. Better tomatoes are the cure.9. Pizza With Twelve Toppings
In Naples, where pizza was invented, a Margherita has three ingredients: - tomato
- mozzarella
- basil
The restraint is the point. Every topping you add is a question the pizza did not ask. BBQ chicken pizza is a different food category entirely and we suggest naming it something else.
10. Cream in Carbonara
We have covered this.
We will keep covering it
until it stops happening.11. Caesar Salad
Caesar salad was invented in 1924 by an Italian immigrant named Caesar Cardini at his restaurant in Tijuana, Mexico.
It is Mexican-American.
It is delicious.
It is not Italian.
Every Italian restaurant in America that serves it on the menu is participating in a very elaborate shared fiction that has been going on for a century.12. Olive Garden Is Italian Food
Olive Garden was founded in Orlando, Florida in 1982. Their breadsticks are made from a proprietary dough recipe developed in a corporate test kitchen. The slogan “When You’re Here, You’re Family” is a marketing line, not a philosophy of hospitality.
We are sure the food is fine.
It is not Italian.
FILED UNDER: MYTHS
