# Italian cuisine is overrated **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 6, 2011, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/italian-cuisine-is-overrated/598800 "2011-10-06T16:56:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/italian-cuisine-is-overrated/598800/21 "2011-10-06T18:46:12Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > If you are eating at places that use Barilla, you deserve to be ripped off. > > That is not to say that pasta isn’t a massive money-maker. It is. But any decent restaurant will make its own pasta. Most restaurants in Italy make their own dried pasta? I honestly didn’t know that. I knew that they all make fresh pasta, but that’s a different animal. ---
**Author:** ![Galileo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/85e7bf/32.png) [@Galileo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Galileo)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/italian-cuisine-is-overrated/598800/22 "2011-10-06T18:49:55Z")
> [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](#): > > The “healthy Mediterranean diet” thing is largely a myth. I live in the region with the best purported cuisine in the whole of Italy. The cuisine here is heavy on butter, cream, lard, fats, and so on. Well, I guess it is a myth if you define it simplistically and erroneously: [Mediterranean diet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_diet): > [@](#): > > The Mediterranean diet is a modern nutritional recommendation inspired by the traditional dietary patterns of southern Italy, Crete and much of the rest of Greece in the 1960s. > … > Despite its name, this diet is not typical of all Mediterranean cuisine. In Northern Italy, for instance, lard and butter are commonly used in cooking, and olive oil is reserved for dressing salads and cooked vegetables. In North Africa, wine is traditionally avoided by Muslims. In both North Africa and the Levant, along with olive oil, sheep’s tail fat and rendered butter (samna) are traditional staple fats. Last time I checked, Bologna is not in southern Italy. But, strangely enough, Puglia is. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/italian-cuisine-is-overrated/598800/23 "2011-10-06T18:58:40Z")
> [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](#): > > No, but that’s an exception amongst pecorinos in my experience. Go to a cheesemonger or a supermarket and there will be a million billion different pecorinos with very little distinction or merit. Well, pecorino just means it’s made with sheep’s milk. There are thousands of cheese made with cow’s milk that are bland and tasteless, too, from dozens of countries. Why pick on pecorino? ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/italian-cuisine-is-overrated/598800/24 "2011-10-06T19:02:42Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > Well, pecorino just means it’s made with sheep’s milk. There are thousands of cheese made with cow’s milk that are bland and tasteless, too, from dozens of countries. Why pick on pecorino? Because that’s largely what they sell in Italy, and Italy at least in the UK has a reputation as a land of amazing cheeses? It isn’t just that the pecorini are bland and tasteless. It’s that they are useless. You cannot cut them into slices, as they have a waxy brittle consistency which means they fall apart, and mask their blandness with a chutney or some other condiment, like you can do with a bland cheddar on a sandwich. ---
**Author:** ![Nathan\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/47e85d/32.png) [@Nathan\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nathan_S)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/italian-cuisine-is-overrated/598800/25 "2011-10-06T19:23:41Z")
> [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](#): > > Bologna’s nickname is la grassa because of its food. Certainly the idea that Bologna has the best cuisine in Italy is not [something unique](http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/3001d/25f78/2/) to me, and my Italian coworkers from all over the peninsula state that Bolognese cuisine is the best in the country, or at least a contender. Further, the region immediately around Bologna is noted for quite a bit more than ragu: mortadella and a million other cured meats, Parmesan cheese, cotolleta alla bolognese, passatelli, Balsamic vinegar, etc. You’ll excuse me for not putting much faith an a Bologna restaurant’s claim that Bologna cuisine is the best in Italy.😃 Plus, it just ain’t true. I notice, too, that with the foodstuffs you’ve indicated here, you’re now talking about regional cuisine, and not just things from Bologna. And since you’ve mentioned cheeses, I defy you to find anything as delectable as Parmigiano Reggiano in the UK, or anywhere outside of the Parma area. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/italian-cuisine-is-overrated/598800/26 "2011-10-06T19:41:57Z")
> [@Nathan\_S](#): > > If you want good eating, go to Tuscany Damn, I second that. More than twenty years later, I can still describe the meals and their taste from that trip to Tuscany. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/italian-cuisine-is-overrated/598800/27 "2011-10-06T19:43:13Z")
He’s not really even saying Italian food is bad, he’s saying it’s _overrates_ which it probably is. Ask any fan of anything and they will most likely rave about it, even if it is just a comfort food to them. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/italian-cuisine-is-overrated/598800/28 "2011-10-06T19:44:00Z")
We were in Italy for two weeks. My husband and I were very happy with the eats. Between the lemon soda, the cheeses, the Roman pizza, the pasta at Trattoria ZaZa in Florence, the ham and cheese casserole in Capri and the homemade asparagus risotto we had in Naples we felt extremely well fed. If you’re lucky enough to live in Italy and unhappy with the food it sounds like you’re looking the wrong places. Even here in Northern NJ I can find some truly great Italian cuisine. We have a great local pizza place and a fabulous upscale restaurant that offers really excellent take out during the day. What could be better than rice balls stuffed with proscuitto or fantastic pizza with tomatoes or vegetarian minestrone or a properly cooked chicken parm sandwich? Yum. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/italian-cuisine-is-overrated/598800/29 "2011-10-06T19:47:43Z")
I’m not that thrilled with Italian food in general. I can believe that quality matters, but mostly pasta and tomato sauce turns me off, except in lasagna, for some reason. I also don’t care for anything made with eggplant or zucchini. I could stand stuffed mushrooms, but not stuffed peppers. I do like a cream-based pasta sauce, and of course pizza. I’ve also tried the technique of heating up cooked pasta in a little olive oil and garlic, throwing in whatever chunks of vegetables you like, which is a pleasant way to throw together a lunch. And fried calamari, like most things you can get fried that aren’t eggplant or zucchini, is pretty yummy. And actually, a pesto sauce is very nice. And they also make some nice sausages. Really, there’s stuff I can eat in an Italian restaurant, so I shouldn’t complain, but it’s not very exciting compared to most ethnic foods available. In fact, while I can appreciate the difference between Italian restaurant food and Italian drive-through food, the difference between Olive Garden and fine Italian dining would be pretty well lost on me. I once heard that Italians happily serve their guests common table wine at meals, like it was Coke or something, but I tried asking for table wine at an Italian restaurant once and they didn’t know what the hell I was talking about. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/italian-cuisine-is-overrated/598800/30 "2011-10-06T19:48:32Z")
> [@LavenderBlue](#): > > We were in Italy for two weeks. My husband and I were very happy with the eats. Between the lemon soda, the cheeses, the Roman pizza, the pasta at Trattoria ZaZa in Florence, the ham and cheese casserole in Capri and the homemade asparagus risotto we had in Naples we felt extremely well fed. If you’re lucky enough to live in Italy and unhappy with the food it sounds like you’re looking the wrong places. > > Even here in Northern NJ I can find some truly great Italian cuisine. We have a great local pizza place and a fabulous upscale restaurant that offers really excellent take out during the day. What could be better than rice balls stuffed with proscuitto or fantastic pizza with tomatoes or vegetarian minestrone or a properly cooked chicken parm sandwich? > > Yum. Depending on where in northern NJ you are, you might want to try a place we found in Tarrytown, NY, a month or so ago. It’s called [Capri Pizza & Pasta Company](http://gotpizza.com/)…looks like a little hole-in-the-wall minimall pizzeria, but it’s got tables in the back and incredible food! ---
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/italian-cuisine-is-overrated/598800/31 "2011-10-06T19:49:37Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > He’s not really even saying Italian food is bad, he’s saying it’s _overrates_ which it probably is. Ask any fan of anything and they will most likely rave about it, even if it is just a comfort food to them. To which I completely disagree. I’ve been around enough (and am a food tourist) to say this is not the truth. That the OP thought that using fusion food as a criterion for his statement says a lot about the OP’s taste (or lack of). Fusion food is for cuisine deprived countries. Italy isnt that. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/italian-cuisine-is-overrated/598800/32 "2011-10-06T19:55:57Z")
> [@Capitaine\_Zombie](#): > > To which I completely disagree. I’ve been around enough (and am a food tourist) to say this is not the truth. That the OP thought that using fusion food as a criterion for his statement says a lot about the OP’s taste (or lack of). > Fusion food is for cuisine deprived countries. Italy isnt that. ? But that doesn’t say anything about my point. If he thinks it’s overrated (please excuse the typo in my original post) that can say he thinks it is without ever addressing the quality of the food. I don’t much like salsa. It’s OK, not bad. But most of the people I know RAVE about salsa, like it’s all that and a bag of potato chips. So, good, but overrated. ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/italian-cuisine-is-overrated/598800/33 "2011-10-06T20:41:11Z")
> [@Nathan\_S](#): > > I notice, too, that with the foodstuffs you’ve indicated here, you’re now talking about regional cuisine, and not just things from Bologna. Err, what? Bologna’s cuisine _is_ the regional cuisine of Emilia-Romagna. It’s the capital of the region, so goods have been shipped here for centuries from both Emilia and Romagna and incorporated into the dishes. You can’t be seriously suggesting that Balsamic vinegar, the product of Bologna’s neighbouring town, is not a part of Bolognese cuisine, can you? ---
**Author:** ![shiftless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shiftless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shiftless)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/italian-cuisine-is-overrated/598800/34 "2011-10-06T20:41:39Z")
When we were visiting Italy a few years ago I came here to the dope to look for advice. I was surprised how many people gushed about how great the food was there. More than any other comment, “you will love the food” stood out. I’ve been a few times and was never overly impressed with the food. Some particular products of Italy ARE great but the typical fare I’ve had at restaurants wasn’t any better than typical fare at average US places (I mean Applebees.) The few meals that stand out for me were more about the ambiance than the food. Italy does ambiance well. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/italian-cuisine-is-overrated/598800/35 "2011-10-06T20:43:44Z")
I kind of agree. I live in a red sauce town, there are tons of Italian restaurants selling mostly the same old thng - spaghets, meata-balls, lotsa sauce, Italian bread. Maybe antipasto. Lasagna, calzones, pizza. It’s popular, cheap, fills em up. And I know, I just know, there are other, different Italian dishes because I’ve heard people who were in different parts of Italy just rave about the food. Veal (not that I’d eat veal), saltimbocca, even gnocchi. One CAN get different Italian food here, of course, but those restaurants are your rather expensive fine-dining places. ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/italian-cuisine-is-overrated/598800/36 "2011-10-06T20:44:06Z")
> [@Capitaine\_Zombie](#): > > Fusion food is for cuisine deprived countries. Italy isnt that. All cuisine is ultimately a fusion of other cuisines. Any serious student of gastronomy would understand that. I guess you’re just an amateur. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/italian-cuisine-is-overrated/598800/37 "2011-10-06T22:00:06Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > He’s not really even saying Italian food is bad, he’s saying it’s _overrates_ which it probably is. Ask any fan of anything and they will most likely rave about it, even if it is just a comfort food to them. The thing about Italian food, is that it ain’t _fancy_. It’s all stuff cooked by grandma, from ingredients scraped out of the dirt by dad. There may be a tiny splash of an expensive ingredient, but that’s going on top of buckets and buckets of pasta, or polenta, or rice, or bread. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/italian-cuisine-is-overrated/598800/38 "2011-10-06T22:07:05Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Yep, having eaten Italian in Rome, Florence and Milan, as well as Budapest, New York City, Dallas and Houston, I can safely say that the best Italian I’ve had was in Budapest, of all places. Interesting. Do you remember the name of the place? Was it Fausto’s or Il Terzo? I just remember being pretty much uniformly disappointed with the Italian in Budapest (and I spent several years there.) As to the OP, I like Italian food, especially northern Italian. It’s great stuff, but I generally prefer the cuisines of France, Mexico, and any of a number of Asian countries to it. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/italian-cuisine-is-overrated/598800/39 "2011-10-06T22:10:35Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > The thing about Italian food, is that it ain’t _fancy_. It’s all stuff cooked by grandma, from ingredients scraped out of the dirt by dad. There may be a tiny splash of an expensive ingredient, but that’s going on top of buckets and buckets of pasta, or polenta, or rice, or bread. That’s fine, as long as you sell me your scraps’n’carbs cheap. If you are going to sell me a plate of rice for twenty bucks, though, there better be more than some stock and a couple mushrooms in it. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/italian-cuisine-is-overrated/598800/40 "2011-10-06T22:20:03Z")
> [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](#): > > Bologna’s nickname is la grassa because of its food. Certainly the idea that Bologna has the best cuisine in Italy is not [something unique](http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/3001d/25f78/2/) to me, and my Italian coworkers from all over the peninsula state that Bolognese cuisine is the best in the country, or at least a contender. Further, the region immediately around Bologna is noted for quite a bit more than ragu: mortadella and a million other cured meats, Parmesan cheese, cotolleta alla bolognese, passatelli, Balsamic vinegar, etc. In case you haven’t noticed the Italians think think that only people from their town are any good for anything and all the rest of Italians are pretenders. I love Italian food, but when I was in Italy, I noticed that the Italian fare was better home in San Francisco. That said, why should the inventors of proscuitto, most pasta, balsamic vinegar, etc., etc., etc. keep innovating? They have got it down. I’ve heard that Venice has the best food in Italy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/italian-cuisine-is-overrated/598800.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/italian-cuisine-is-overrated/598800.md?page=3)