Per: "I don't want Mexicans preparing food in my Italian Restaurant." That might even make Trump blush.Per wrote: ↑Thu Nov 07, 2019 3:48 amI love Italian food, and yeah, when it's done right, preferrably by Italians, it is THE BEST.Strangelove wrote: ↑Tue Nov 05, 2019 5:32 pm Gotta agree with the Chef on this one, Italian food is THE BEST!
Aside from the cheap shot, the cult of authenticity with regard to food origin is absurd. How dare old world cuisine incorporate new world crops like tomatoes and potatoes!
Food tastes and trends change (or get tweaked) with every generation (at least in the US and Canada). Many wonderful food trends come from merging national cuisines or using locally available or available produce and meats as a substitute in recipes for what was available where the dish as initially created.
I get a kick out of "that's not how they do it in" country of origin claims that presuppose the best way to do it is within the country of origin. Last I checked, the United States and Canada are comprised of lots and lots of people with ancestors who came here precisely because that they believed that presumption was false -- or at least quite tenable. (claim here is not the food must be better, but you get the point -- sometimes what you have is not the best there is). More than that, people create new things all the time, including food. That some (likely) sicilian restauranter decided to take spaghetti and take meatballs and then put them on the same plate with a tomato sauce, doesn't give it a lesser value than the first Napolese dude who made up pasta e fagioli....
Last, I know that my maternal family, who came from sicily to New York, ate their fair share of spaghetti and meatballs when the native-born sicilians were still kicking it. Its pasta -- common as a first course -- combined with meatballs -- common as a main course -- combined. It was a staple for Italian-American working class immigrants. It filled you up, tasted good, and was cheap. That those same sicilian-born immigrants would have not had that dish in Italy means nothing normatively.