To be honest, I like local food “rules” and it shows me people care. 
And when I’m in that part of the world, I do as they do. I don’t put ketchup on my dog here in Chicago, but in Buffalo, a Ted’s order with everything has ketchup, so I put ketchup on it. For me, it’s fun exploring local traditions and eating food how other people like it, not necessarily always catered to my own tastes. I find it more interesting that way. Food is not only just personal pleasure and sustenance to me, but also a way of exploring culture, and taking me out of my comfort zone is part of it. And sometimes (quite often, really), I discover I like the food better their way, because it now reminds me more closely of another culture, experience, time, etc.
Pizza has had a similar journey. Returning American servicemen who were stationed in Italy during WWII brought their love of pizza back with them, and pizza joints started opening up, but as per the American way, pizza got “Yankee’d up” with a million possible toppings.
Then American tourists in Italy would order pizza and be all like “what is this ‘Pizza Margherita’ with just sauce, cheese, and a couple basil leaves? Where’s the Meatlover’s Special on the menu?!?” So I’ve heard at least some Italian pizza places now offer American-style pizza.
It reminds me of an NPR story I heard a few years ago that I found amusing-- an American expatriot in Hong Kong opened an “American-style” Chinese restaurant for other expatriots who were nostalgic for the unique offerings only found in American Chinese restaurants. He had to jump through hoops to import ingredients that just can’t be found in China-- like applesauce, which I guess is used as an ingredient in some sweet AmeriChina sauces like duck sauce.
OK, fine by me. Invent a new dish with snails and call it English. I might even try it. But I guess more than one English person will raise an eyebrow and say, in this particular high pitched tone you surely know: “English?” Perhaps I should not have talked about English cuisine, but of traditional English cuisine. Call your snail new English cuisine, you might get away with it.
Sounds like an excellent business idea.
Speaking of pseudo-Italian food and good ideas: is spaghetti-icecream (Spaghettieis) a thing outside Germany? It is not only a simple and good idea, children LOVE it. It is good business too!
Right- in a food sense, they may as well call Italian-American cuisine just a different regional variation on Italian food, not a totally separate sort of food. Much like how chili con carne and fajitas come straight out of Mexican food traditions, and were developed by ethnic Mexicans, but just within the borders of the US. Both are as Mexican as they are American. Same thing for Italian-American dishes- they’re as Italian as American, except the Italians turn their noses up at them.
Fundamentally the Italian food “rules” are a sign of extreme conservatism in terms of their food. They’re trying to put the brakes on change, because they are uncomfortable/annoyed by the idea of someone coming in and making some kind of fusion dish using spices or ingredients that aren’t traditional.
Which is absurd; a big chunk of what we call Italian cuisine has cornerstones that were once new and weird- tomatoes, chiles/peppers, corn/maize, squash, and potatoes. But it’s like once that stuff got assimilated, they put the brakes on anything else that’s new.
What I don’t like is the snootiness/disdain- the idea that something like Italian-American food is somehow inferior because it’s not the traditional stuff, or that there’s a limited set of “right” ways to make pizza and everything else is wrong.
Look, don’t be so hard on them. Italy was an impoverished country until relatively recent history, and they still have lots to complain about how the place is run/not run (and boy do they complain). Food is one thing that they can be (rightly) proud of - possibly their greatest contribution to the world after the latin alphabet. I say let them have this one.
Only if you ignore:
Radio (Marconi)
Batteries (Volta)
The scientific method and a few other paltry discovieris by Galileo
The Gioconda, the Last Supper, the Sixtine Chapel and about 5 or six more Wonders of the World that can help you win a cultural victory in Civilization.
Aqueducts, Roads, Public Sanitation and other things the romans did for us.
And I’m sure I’m forgetting a lot of other things.
Come on Frodo, we’re talking about pizza here
Well, it’s already been done.
How did these traditions come into existence? Who decided there would be some cutoff point where traditions would be frozen down and nothing new can happen. It’s conservative nostalgia in culinary form.
Italics ?
ETA: whoa… I was kidding, but:
“Italics” are written in italic type, which got their name because they were invented by an Italian, Aldus Manutius.
Just thinking some more on this. Why do the whiners have the ultimate power in this scenario?
Sir, this is a Domino’s…
My experience with Italians and Italian cuisine is that:
It seems as if a greater percentage of Italians (vs. Americans) are “foodies”, in that they are passionate about what they eat, have very high expectations of restaurant cooking, and do a whole lot more home cooking with natural ingredients.
I’ve slowly come to realize that typical Italian dishes tend towards simplicity, with more attention to fewer ingredients (though there are always outliers, like Pizza capricciosa). You can get a big variety of elements at a dinner, but they tend to be separated into many dishes. Americans (speaking in generalities) tend to improve by adding stuff to a dish.
Italians are very serious about pasta. Really, really serious. If I had to pick one thing that causes my Italian friends to avoid Italian dishes at American restaurants it is that they don’t believe American restaurants make or cook pasta competently.
And don’t get them started on olive oil. Based on my observations of my Italian friends tasting olive oil served with bread, etc. in an American restaurant, there is very little acceptable olive oil in America.
I’m not from your area - but just by the name of Maggiano’s Little Italy, I knew it would be an Italian- American restaurant and have spaghetti and meatballs on the menu.
And even though I’m half-Sicilian, I prefer Italian restaurants that don’t have spaghetti and meatballs on the menu. For a few reasons - one is that like @pulykamell , if I feel like red-sauce Italian I make it at home , another is that I can get good red-sauce dishes at a pizzeria at a lower price than a restaurant and the last is that I ate so much of it growing up that it doesn’t feel special
In case you are calling me a whiner I will gladly concede that I have no power at all (and not really an idea of what post of mine you are refering to). You win, whatever is at stake. Arrivederci.
Unless you are identifying yourself as the person you literally described as whining here, no, I did not call you a whiner.
It’s so funny how much like language prescriptivism this little argument is.
Cuisine, like language and every other artifact of human culture, evolves. And yet there is always a desire to arrest, or slow, or deny, that evolution.
Italian food rules are, in fact, no more than guidelines. Like the Pirate Code, except it seems you’re more likely to get hurt crossing the Food Mafia than Captain Blackbeard and his crew.
I personally avoid giving offense even to prescriptionists if I can, but I can’t help it if the prescriptionism is hidden until offended, and no, not everyone should be expected to know or agree with your damn rules. So get some perspective.
What do Italy Italians think about putting two pounds of mozzarella on a small pizza?
You’d have to ask them, I’m only an Italian who speaks spanish and thinks he’s french.
I think I’m OK in principle with the idea of a group of people deciding collectively that they are really comfortable with the stick up their collective asses, and enforcing whatever prescriptive rules they like, on themselves. I just don’t enjoy it when it all spills over and they decide the stick should be up my ass.
I’m perhaps a bit sensitive to this because I get it a lot. I’m not a chef, but I like cooking, and I make videos about food. I actually somewhat avoid cooking Italian food, because it’s just not worth the pain; even then, I get people (and a disproportionate number of them are Italians) telling me no, no, no! You MUST NOT cook X together with Y.
There’s a secondary tier of people (of all nationalities) who just don’t seem to grasp that experimental cooking is even possible in the 21st Century; cooking is solved to them; you should just follow a recipe, precisely. Why are you doing it wrong? It would be better if you just did it the same way everyone does it. Don’t substitute this ingredient for another one, even if you want to. Don’t.
If we don’t have laws regulating the proper and correct way to cook, serve, and eat food then society will rapidly fall down a hyperbolically described slippery slope towards an end just as preposterously defined.
I’m sure a lot of us have already seen this clip but it makes me laugh every time.
