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The Romans employed Greek bakers to produce breads and imported cheeses from Sicily as the Sicilians had a reputation as the best cheesemakers. The Romans reared goats for butchering , and grew artichokes and leeks. With culinary traditions from Rome and Athens , a cuisine developed in Sicily that some consider the first real Italian cuisine. Food preservation was either chemical or physical, as refrigeration did not exist. Meats and fish were smoked , dried, or kept on ice.
Brine and salt were used to pickle items such as herring , and to cure pork.
From the Antipasto to the Zabaglione tells the story of Italian restaurants in America. There is certainly more to Italian food in this country than what is found in its. Sunset Italian Cook Book From Antipasto to Zabaglione [Editors of Sunset Books and Sunset Magazine] on bahana-line.com Story time just got better with Prime Book Box, a subscription that delivers hand-picked children's books Would you like to tell us about a lower price? . local restaurants · Amazon Web Services.
Root vegetables were preserved in brine after they had been parboiled. Other means of preservation included oil , vinegar , or immersing meat in congealed, rendered fat. For preserving fruits, liquor , honey, and sugar were used. The northern Italian regions show a mix of Germanic [ citation needed ] and Roman culture while the south reflects Arab [ citation needed ] influence, as much Mediterranean cuisine was spread by Arab trade.
Dishes include "Roman-style" cabbage ad usum romanorum , ad usum campanie which were "small leaves" prepared in the "Campanian manner", a bean dish from the Marca di Trevisio, a torta , compositum londardicum which are similar to dishes prepared today. Two other books from the 14th century include recipes for Roman pastello , Lasagna pie, and call for the use of salt from Sardinia or Chioggia.
His Libro de arte coquinaria describes a more refined and elegant cuisine. His book contains a recipe for Maccaroni Siciliani , made by wrapping dough around a thin iron rod to dry in the sun. The macaroni was cooked in capon stock flavored with saffron , displaying Persian influences.
Of particular note is Martino's avoidance of excessive spices in favor of fresh herbs. His Florentine dishes include eggs with Bolognese torta , Sienese torta and Genoese recipes such as piperata sweets , macaroni, squash , mushrooms , and spinach pie with onions. Platina puts Martino's "Libro" in regional context, writing about perch from Lake Maggiore , sardines from Lake Garda , grayling from Adda , hens from Padua , olives from Bologna and Piceno , turbot from Ravenna , rudd from Lake Trasimeno , carrots from Viterbo , bass from the Tiber , roviglioni and shad from Lake Albano , snails from Rieti , figs from Tuscolo, grapes from Narni , oil from Cassino , oranges from Naples and eels from Campania.
Grains from Lombardy and Campania are mentioned as is honey from Sicily and Taranto. The courts of Florence , Rome , Venice , and Ferrara were central to the cuisine. Messisbugo gives recipes for pies and tarts containing recipes with various fillings. The work emphasizes the use of Eastern spices and sugar.
In , Bartolomeo Scappi , personal chef to Pope Pius V , wrote his Opera in five volumes, giving a comprehensive view of Italian cooking of that period. It contains over 1, recipes, with information on banquets including displays and menus as well as illustrations of kitchen and table utensils. This book differs from most books written for the royal courts in its preference for domestic animals and courtyard birds rather than game. Recipes include lesser cuts of meats such as tongue, head, and shoulder. The third volume has recipes for fish in Lent.
These fish recipes are simple, including poaching , broiling , grilling , and frying after marination. Particular attention is given to seasons and places where fish should be caught.
The final volume includes pies, tarts, fritters, and a recipe for a sweet Neapolitan pizza not the current savory version, as tomatoes had not yet been introduced to Italy. However, such items from the New World as corn maize and turkey are included. Originally from Modena , Castelvetro moved to England because he was a Protestant. The book lists Italian vegetables and fruits along with their preparation.
He featured vegetables as a central part of the meal, not just as accompaniments. He also suggested roasting vegetables wrapped in damp paper over charcoal or embers with a drizzle of olive oil. Castelvetro's book is separated into seasons with hop shoots in the spring and truffles in the winter, detailing the use of pigs in the search for truffles. He was the first to offer a section on vitto ordinario "ordinary food". The book described a banquet given by Duke Charles for Queen Christina of Sweden , with details of the food and table settings for each guest, including a knife, fork, spoon, glass, a plate instead of the bowls more often used , and a napkin.
Other books from this time, such as Galatheo by Giovanni della Casa , tell how scalci "waiters" should manage themselves while serving their guests. Waiters should not scratch their heads or other parts of themselves, or spit, sniff, cough or sneeze while serving diners. The book also told diners not to use their fingers while eating and not to wipe sweat with their napkin.
At the beginning of the 18th century, Italian culinary books began to emphasize the regionalism of Italian cuisine rather than French cuisine. Books written then were no longer addressed to professional chefs but to bourgeois housewives. As the century progressed these books increased in size, popularity, and frequency. In the 18th century, medical texts warned peasants against eating refined foods as it was believed that these were poor for their digestion and their bodies required heavy meals.
It was believed by some that peasants ate poorly because they preferred eating poorly. However, many peasants had to eat rotten food and moldy bread because that was all they could afford. Nebbia addressed the importance of local vegetables and pasta , rice, and gnocchi. For stock, he preferred vegetables and chicken over other meats.
It is so called because Pythagoras , as is well known, only used such produce. There is no doubt that this kind of food appears to be more natural to man, and the use of meat is noxious. Zuppa alli pomidoro in Corrado's book is a dish similar to today's Tuscan pappa al pomodoro. Corrado's edition introduced a "Treatise on the Potato" after the French Antoine-Augustin Parmentier 's successful promotion of the tuber.
This book contained the first recipe for pesto. La Cucina Teorico-Pratica written by Ippolito Cavalcanti described the first recipe for pasta with tomatoes. La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangiare bene The Science of Cooking and the Art of Eating Well , by Pellegrino Artusi , first published in , is widely regarded as the canon of classic modern Italian cuisine, and it is still in print.
Its recipes predominantly originate from Romagna and Tuscany , where he lived. Italian cuisine has a great variety of different ingredients which are commonly used, ranging from fruits, vegetables, sauces, meats, etc. Pasta dishes with use of tomato are spread in all Italy. In Northern Italy though there are many kinds of stuffed pasta, polenta and risotto are equally popular if not more so. Basil found in pesto , nuts, and olive oil are very common.
Traditional Central Italian cuisine uses ingredients such as tomatoes, all kinds of meat, fish, and pecorino cheese. In Tuscany , pasta especially pappardelle is traditionally served with meat sauce including game meat. Italian cuisine is also well known and well regarded for its use of a diverse variety of pasta. Pasta include noodles in various lengths, widths, and shapes.
Most pastas may be distinguished by the shapes for which they are named— penne , maccheroni , spaghetti , linguine , fusilli , lasagne , and many more varieties that are filled with other ingredients like ravioli and tortellini. The word pasta is also used to refer to dishes in which pasta products are a primary ingredient. It is usually served with sauce. There are hundreds of different shapes of pasta with at least locally recognized names. Examples include spaghetti thin rods , rigatoni tubes or cylinders , fusilli swirls , and lasagne sheets. They are both traditional in parts of Italy.
Pasta is categorized in two basic styles: Dried pasta made without eggs can be stored for up to two years under ideal conditions, while fresh pasta will keep for a couple of days in the refrigerator.
Pasta is generally cooked by boiling. Under Italian law, dry pasta pasta secca can only be made from durum wheat flour or durum wheat semolina , and is more commonly used in Southern Italy compared to their Northern counterparts, who traditionally prefer the fresh egg variety. Durum flour and durum semolina have a yellow tinge in color. Italian pasta is traditionally cooked al dente Italian: Outside Italy, dry pasta is frequently made from other types of flour, but this yields a softer product.
There are many types of wheat flour with varying gluten and protein levels depending on variety of grain used. Particular varieties of pasta may also use other grains and milling methods to make the flour, as specified by law. Some pasta varieties, such as pizzoccheri , are made from buckwheat flour.
Fresh pasta may include eggs pasta all'uovo "egg pasta". Whole wheat pasta has become increasingly popular because of its supposed health benefits over pasta made from refined flour. Each area has its own specialties , primarily at a regional level, but also at provincial level. The differences can come from a bordering country such as France or Austria , whether a region is close to the sea or the mountains, and economics.
Pasta, meat, and vegetables are central to the cuisine of Abruzzo and Molise. Chili peppers peperoncini are typical of Abruzzo, where they are called diavoletti "little devils" for their spicy heat. Due to the long history of shepherding in Abruzzo and Molise , lamb dishes are common.
Lamb is often paired with pasta. Best-known is the extra virgin olive oil produced in the local farms on the hills of the region, marked by the quality level DOP and considered one of the best in the country. Another liqueur is genziana , a soft distillate of gentian roots. The best-known dish from Abruzzo is arrosticini , little pieces of castrated lamb on a wooden stick and cooked on coals. The chitarra literally "guitar" is a fine stringed tool that pasta dough is pressed through for cutting. The popularity of saffron , grown in the province of L'Aquila , has waned in recent years.
Pizzelle cookies are a common dessert, especially around Christmas. The cuisine of Basilicata is mostly based on inexpensive ingredients and deeply anchored in rural traditions. Pork is an integral part of the regional cuisine, [ citation needed ] often made into sausages or roasted on a spit. Famous dry sausages from the region are lucanica and soppressata. Wild boar, mutton, and lamb are also popular. Pasta sauces are generally based on meats or vegetables.
Spicy peperoncini is largely used, as well as the so-called peperoni cruschi "crunchy peppers". Basilicata is known for spaghetti -like pasta troccoli and capunti , [46] a thick and short oval pasta whose shape is often compared to that of an open empty pea pod. Capunti are usually served with a hearty vegetable tomato sauce or various meat sauces.
Desserts include taralli dolci , made with sugar glaze and scented with anise and calzoncelli , fried pastries filled with a cream of chestnuts and chocolate. Basilicata is also known for its mineral waters which are sold widely in Italy. The springs are mostly located in the volcanic basin of the Vulture area.
Seafood includes swordfish , shrimp , lobster , sea urchin , and squid. Macaroni -type pasta is widely used in regional dishes, often served with goat, beef, or pork sauce and salty ricotta. Melon and watermelon are traditionally served in a chilled fruit salad or wrapped in ham. Calabrese pizza has a Neapolitan-based structure with fresh tomato sauce and a cheese base, but is unique because of its spicy flavor. Some of the ingredients included in a Calabrese pizza are thinly sliced hot soppressata , hot capicola, hot peppers, and fresh mozzarella.
Campania extensively produces tomatoes, peppers, spring onions , potatoes, artichokes, fennel, lemons, and oranges which all take on the flavor of volcanic soil. The Gulf of Naples offers fish and seafood. Campania is one of the largest producers and consumers of pasta in Italy, especially spaghetti. In the regional cuisine, pasta is prepared in various styles that can feature tomato sauce, cheese, clams, and shellfish. Spaghetti alla puttanesca is a popular dish made with olives, tomatoes, anchovies, capers, chili peppers, and garlic.
The region is well-known also for its mozzarella production especially from the milk of water buffalo that's used in a variety of dishes, including parmigiana shallow fried eggplant slices layered with cheese and tomato sauce, then baked. Originating in Neapolitan cuisine , pizza has become popular in many different parts of the world.
Since the original pizza, several other types of pizzas have evolved.
Since Naples was the capital of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies , its cuisine took much from the culinary traditions of all the Campania region, reaching a balance between dishes based on rural ingredients pasta, vegetables, cheese and seafood dishes fish, crustaceans, mollusks. Emilia-Romagna is known for its egg and filled pasta made with soft wheat flour. The Romagna subregion is renowned for pasta dishes like cappelletti , garganelli , strozzapreti , sfoglia lorda, and tortelli alla lastra as well as cheeses such as squacquerone , Piadina snacks are also a specialty of the subregion.
In the Emilia subregion, except Piacenza which is heavily influenced by the cuisines of Lombardy , rice is eaten to a lesser extent. Polenta , a maize-based dish, is common in both Emilia and Romagna. Bologna and Modena are notable for pasta dishes like tortellini , lasagne , gramigna, and tagliatelle which are found also in many other parts of the region in different declinations.
The celebrated balsamic vinegar is made only in the Emilian cities of Modena and Reggio Emilia , following legally binding traditional procedures. Grana Padano cheese is produced in Piacenza. Although the Adriatic coast is a major fishing area well known for its eels and clams , the region is more famous for its meat products, especially pork-based, that include Parma's prosciutto , culatello , and Felino salami ; Piacenza's pancetta , coppa , and salami; Bologna's mortadella and salame rosa ; Modena's zampone , cotechino , and cappello del prete ; and Ferrara 's salama da sugo.
Piacenza is also known for some dishes prepared with horse and donkey meat. Regional desserts include zuppa inglese custard-based dessert made with sponge cake and Alchermes liqueur and panpepato Christmas cake made with pepper, chocolate, spices, and almonds. Friuli-Venezia Giulia conserved, in its cuisine, the historical links with Austria-Hungary. Udine and Pordenone , in the western part of Friuli, are known for their traditional San Daniele del Friuli ham , Montasio cheese, and Frico cheese. Other typical dishes are pitina meatballs made of smoked meats , game, and various types of gnocchi and polenta.
The majority of the eastern regional dishes are heavily influenced by Austrian, Hungarian, Slovene and Croatian cuisines: Pork can be spicy and is often prepared over an open hearth called a fogolar. Liguria is known for herbs and vegetables as well as seafood in its cuisine. Savory pies are popular, mixing greens and artichokes along with cheeses, milk curds, and eggs. Onions and olive oil are used. Because of a lack of land suitable for wheat, the Ligurians use chickpeas in farinata and polenta-like panissa. The former is served plain or topped with onions, artichokes , sausage, cheese or young anchovies.
Hilly districts use chestnuts as a source of carbohydrates. Ligurian pastas include corzetti from the Polcevera valley ; pansoti , a triangular shaped ravioli filled with vegetables; piccagge , pasta ribbons made with a small amount of egg and served with artichoke sauce or pesto sauce; trenette , made from whole wheat flour cut into long strips and served with pesto; boiled beans and potatoes; and trofie , a Ligurian gnocchi made from whole grain flour and boiled potatoes, made into a spiral shape and often tossed in pesto.
Pasta dishes based on the use of guanciale unsmoked bacon prepared with pig's jowl or cheeks are often found in Lazio , such as pasta alla carbonara and pasta all'amatriciana. Another pasta dish of the region is arrabbiata , with spicy tomato sauce. The regional cuisine widely use offal, resulting in dishes like the entrail-based rigatoni with pajata sauce and coda alla vaccinara. Iconic of Lazio is cheese made from ewes' milk Pecorino Romano , porchetta savory, fatty, and moist boneless pork roast and Frascati white wine.
The influence of the ancient Jewish community can be noticed in the Roman cuisine's traditional carciofi alla giudia. The regional cuisine of Lombardy is heavily based upon ingredients like maize, rice, beef, pork, butter, and lard. Rice dishes are very popular in this region, often found in soups as well as risotto. The best-known version is risotto alla milanese , flavoured with saffron and typically served with many typical Milanese main courses, such as ossobuco alla milanese cross-cut veal shanks braised with vegetables, white wine and broth and cotoletta alla milanese a fried cutlet similar to Wiener schnitzel , but cooked "bone-in".
Regional cheeses include Robiola , Crescenza , Taleggio , Gorgonzola , and Grana Padano the plains of central and southern Lombardy allow intensive cattle farming. Polenta is common across the region. Regional desserts include the famous panettone Christmas cake sweet bread with candied orange, citron, and lemon zest, as well as raisins, which are added dry and not soaked. On the coast of Marche , fish and seafood are produced. Inland, wild and domestic pigs are used for sausages and hams. These hams are not thinly sliced, but cut into bite-sized chunks.
Suckling pig , chicken , and fish are often stuffed with rosemary or fennel fronds and garlic before being roasted or placed on the spit. Ascoli, Marche's southernmost province, is well known for olive all'ascolana , stoned olives stuffed with several minced meats, egg, and Parmesan, then fried. Between the Alps and the Po valley , featuring a large number of different ecosystems, the Piedmont region offers the most refined and varied cuisine of the Italian peninsula.
As a point of union between traditional Italian and French cuisine, Piedmont is the Italian region with the largest number of cheeses with protected geographical status and wines under DOC. It is also the region where both the Slow Food association and the most prestigious school of Italian cooking, the University of Gastronomic Sciences , were founded. Piedmont is a region where gathering nuts, mushrooms , and cardoons , as well as hunting and fishing are common place. Truffles , garlic, seasonal vegetables, cheese, and rice featured in the cuisine. Wines from the Nebbiolo grape such as Barolo and Barbaresco are produced as well as wines from the Barbera grape, fine sparkling wines , and the sweet, lightly sparkling, Moscato d'Asti.
The region is also famous for its Vermouth and Ratafia production. Castelmagno is a prized cheese of the region. The food most typical of the Piedmont tradition are the traditional agnolotti pasta folded over with roast beef and vegetable stuffing , panissa a typical dish of Vercelli , a kind of risotto with Arborio rice or Maratelli rice, the typical kind of Saluggia beans, onion, Barbera wine, lard, salami, salt, and pepper , taglierini thinner version of tagliatelle , bagna cauda sauce of garlic, anchovies, olive oil, and butter , and bicerin hot drink made of coffee, chocolate, and whole milk.
Apulia is a massive food producer: Apulia is also the largest producer of olive oil in Italy. The sea offers abundant fish and seafood that are extensively used in the regional cuisine, especially oysters, and mussels. Goat and lamb are occasionally used. Pasta with cherry tomatoes and arugula is also popular. Regional desserts include zeppola , doughnuts usually topped with powdered sugar and filled with custard, jelly, cannoli-style pastry cream, or a butter-and-honey mixture.
For Christmas, Apulians make a very traditional rose-shaped pastry called cartellate. These are fried and dipped in vin cotto , which is a either a wine or fig juice reduction. Suckling pig and wild boar are roasted on the spit or boiled in stews of beans and vegetables, thickened with bread.
Herbs such as mint and myrtle are widely used in the regional cuisine. Sardinia also has many special types of bread, made dry, which keeps longer than high-moisture breads. Also baked are carasau bread civraxiu , coccoi pinatus , a highly decorative bread, and pistoccu made with flour and water only, originally meant for herders, but often served at home with tomatoes, basil, oregano, garlic, and a strong cheese.
Rock lobster , scampi , squid, tuna, and sardines are the predominant seafoods. Casu marzu is a very strong cheese produced in Sardinia, but is of questionable legality due to hygiene concerns. Sicily shows traces of all the cultures which established themselves on the island over the last two millennia. Although its cuisine undoubtably has a predominantly Italian base, Sicilian food also has Spanish, Greek and Arab influences.
Dionysus is said to have introduced wine to the region: The ancient Romans introduced lavish dishes based on goose. The Byzantines favored sweet and sour flavors and the Arabs brought sugar , citrus , rice, spinach, and saffron. The Normans and Hohenstaufens had a fondness for meat dishes. The Spanish introduced items from the New World including chocolate, maize, turkey, and tomatoes.
Much of the island's cuisine encourages the use of fresh vegetables such as eggplant , peppers , and tomatoes, as well as fish such as tuna , sea bream , sea bass , cuttlefish , and swordfish. In Trapani , in the extreme western corner of the island, North African influences are clear in the use of various couscous based dishes, usually combined with fish. Traditional specialties from Sicily include arancini a form of deep-fried rice croquettes , pasta alla Norma , caponata , pani ca meusa , and a host of desserts and sweets such as cannoli , granita , and cassata.
Typical of Sicily is Marsala , a red, fortified wine similar to Port and largely exported. Before the Council of Trent in the middle of the 16th century, the region was known for the simplicity of its peasant cuisine. When the prelates of the Catholic Church established there, they brought the art of fine cooking with them. Later, also influences from Venice and the Austrian Habsburg Empire came in.
The Trentino subregion produces various types of sausages, polenta, yogurt, cheese, potato cake, funnel cake, and freshwater fish. The most renowned local product is traditional speck juniper-flavored ham which, as Speck Alto Adige , is regulated by the European Union under the protected geographical indication PGI status. Simplicity is central to the Tuscan cuisine. Legumes, bread, cheese, vegetables, mushrooms, and fresh fruit are used.
A good example of typical Tuscan food is ribollita , a notable soup whose name literally means "reboiled. Ribollita was originally made by reheating i. There are many variations but the main ingredients always include leftover bread, cannellini beans, and inexpensive vegetables such as carrot, cabbage, beans, silverbeet , cavolo nero Tuscan kale , onion, and olive oil.
A regional Tuscan pasta known as pici resembles thick, grainy-surfaced spaghetti, and is often rolled by hand. White truffles from San Miniato appear in October and November. High-quality beef, used for the traditional Florentine steak , come from the Chianina cattle breed of the Chiana Valley and the Maremmana from Maremma.
Pork is also produced. Regional desserts include panforte prepared with honey, fruits, and nuts , ricciarelli biscuits made using an almond base with sugar, honey, and egg white , and cavallucci cookies made with almonds, candied fruits, coriander, flour, and honey. Many Umbrian dishes are prepared by boiling or roasting with local olive oil and herbs. Vegetable dishes are popular in the spring and summer, [72] while fall and winter sees meat from hunting and black truffles from Norcia. Meat dishes include the traditional wild boar sausages, pheasants , geese , pigeons , frogs , and snails.
White truffles from San Miniato appear in October and November. Archived from the original on 11 June Some pasta varieties, such as pizzoccheri , are made from buckwheat flour. It is a mixture of cappuccino and traditional hot chocolate , as it consists of a mix of coffee and drinking chocolate , and with a small addition of milk. Under Italian law, dry pasta pasta secca can only be made from durum wheat flour or durum wheat semolina , and is more commonly used in Southern Italy compared to their Northern counterparts, who traditionally prefer the fresh egg variety.
Castelluccio is known for its lentils. Spoleto and Monteleone are known for spelt. Freshwater fish include lasca , trout , freshwater perch , grayling , eel , barbel , whitefish , and tench.
In the Aosta Valley , bread-thickened soups are customary as well as cheese fondue , chestnuts, potatoes, rice. Polenta is a staple along with rye bread , smoked bacon , Motsetta cured chamois meat , and game from the mountains and forests. Butter and cream are important in stewed, roasted, and braised dishes. By the time I started writing about food in the mid s, this homegrown cuisine had fallen out of favor as northern Italian—inspired dishes, deemed sometimes erroneously lighter and more authentic, became all the rage.
I can't say that I didn't welcome the new trend of delicate fresh egg pasta, or celebrate the fact that grilled branzino had replaced shrimp scampi on so many Italian menus. But I will never deny my love for a supersize plate of spaghetti with homemade meatballs, or an eggplant parmesan hero, with its ample breading and sauce and molten mozzarella.
There's a beauty and succor to Italian-American food, and it's for a good reason that so many chefs have been returning to those classics recently, preparing them with a newfound zeal and sense of respect. It began authentically enough, with Italian immigrants who were skilled at making the very most from the very least. The abbondanza for which Italian-American cooking is known stems from the fact that these immigrant cooks, most of whom came from dire poverty, took pride in being able to feed family and friends sumptuously on the kinds of foods they couldn't afford back home.
Ingredients like mozzarella and ricotta were no longer used as accents, or as meals in themselves: They were added to dishes with abandon. My father's lobster fra diavolo, which was likely inspired by tomato-based seafood stews made with small spiny or inexpensive rock lobster in Italy, was another example: When it was popularized in the s in Italian-American restaurants, it became a lavish dish—far bigger in size and flavor than its predecessors—of fat New England lobsters cooked in a fiery tomato sauce.
Another ingredient considered an extravagance in southern Italian cooking, veal, could be found on early Italian-American menus in myriad forms: Foods from the homeland became springboards for invention in the States. Take pizza, which evolved from its simple Neapolitan roots into styles unlike anything found in Italy see Any Way You Slice It , with more cheese, more sauce, and more toppings. Or, tomato sauce, for that matter: When my wife and I first traveled across Italy, on our honeymoon in , we saw neither marinara that quickly cooked sauce of just tomatoes, garlic, and oil or the long-simmered "Sunday sauce," stocked with all kinds of meats, which most families I knew while growing up served on Sunday.
Of course, tomato sauce exists in Italy; the irony is that tomatoes were brought to Italy from the Americas in the 16th century and considered poisonous by all but southerners, who found them a delicious addition to their meager diet and discovered that they flourished in their sunny clime. Which explains why when more than 4 million Italians, a vast majority of them from the south, immigrated to America between and , they brought tomatoes, and tomato sauce, with them.
Every cook had a version, and it became the food on which immigrant mothers staked their eminence within their neighborhoods. Growing up, we would no more insult a friend's sauce than we would his mother or grandmother. The sauce was sacred. Soon enough, red sauce became emblematic of Italian food in the United States, embraced by Americans from every ethnic group and marketed by savvy restaurateurs as part and parcel of the cuisine's abundance. My family dined out at least once a week, usually at a place called Amerigo's in the Bronx, which began as a pizza stand in the s and evolved into a restaurant of extraordinary breadth, with a menu that ranged from antipasti to zabaglione, and a dining room decked out with an illuminated waterfall and a mural of the nearby Throgs Neck Bridge.
It was at restaurants like Amerigo's that we feasted on the kind of fancy dishes that Mom didn't make on weeknights: I always had the gnocchi with tomato sauce and my brother, the manicotti. My father would order a massive New York strip steak, introduced to the city's steakhouses by Italian-American butchers, and my mother would have filet of sole "Livornese," a dish with clams and mussels, white wine, and a moderate amount of garlic.
Portions were huge, including the cheesecake and cannoli for dessert. A waiter came to the table to whip zabaglione in a big copper pot.
The epitome of this style of dining was Mamma Leone's on 48th Street in Manhattan. That multistoried spectacle of Italian kitsch, with nude statuary and blocks of mozzarella and provolone cheese on every table, opened in and was operated by the same family until it was sold to a restaurant group in , eventually closing in Had Verdi lived to eat there, he would have written an opera about it, and Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini—both of whom were immortalized in pasta dishes that bore their names—would have sung the leads.
As much as Americans adored places like Mamma Leone's, Italian-American food was often referred to as grub for "greasers" and "garlic eaters. This included prosciutto di Parma, extra-virgin olive oil from different locales, parmigiano-reggiano, arborio rice, funghi porcini, balsamic vinegar, and outstanding Italian wines from producers like Angelo Gaja and Giovanni di Piero Antinori. By that time, many Italian-American restaurants had become tired and tiresome, and some restaurateurs tried to refine the cliches—and justify higher prices—by turning to northern Italy for inspiration.
This food was welcomed as authentic regional Italian: Lasagne with meatballs and meat sauce was dismissed in favor of lasagne alla Bolognese , with besciamella and spinach pasta. Italian-American cheesecake and cannoli were replaced by tiramisu and panna cotta. The old chianti bottles in straw fiaschi baskets were abandoned in favor of expensive barolos, barbarescos, and "super-Tuscans.
Red-checkered tablecloths disappeared; now the tables were set with Frette linens. The zeitgeist looked north for another reason: Italian fashion and design centered in northern cities like Milan and Florence was all the rage in the s.