Italian Food Misconceptions
No trip to Italy is complete without experiencing Italy’s cuisine – probably as famous as Italy’s historical and geographical attractions. From olive oil, balsamic vinegar, prosciutto, to wines, most visitors only experience a fraction of the diverse products and dishes that make up the cuisines of Italy, and it’s many regional variations.
As an Italophile and a traveler, I suggest that you reject the notion that Italy is a country in which there is uniformity of taste, culture, language and history from region to region. This country has one of the longest and most complex political, cultural and gastronomic history in the world. When Italy was unified in 1861 it was an amalgamation of peoples extending form the Alps (Germany, France, Switzerland, Austro-Hungarian empire) past the great venetian republic and the royal house of savoy, to the noble city states in the center of the peninsula through Rome and its papal territories to the deep south with cultural and historic influences from Greece and the Maghreb in north Africa. The merging process took many years because not everyone was pleased with the idea of unifying, and still holds true today.
Italy is a young nation made up of many ancient independent states, each with centuries of its own art, culture, language, and tradition. Eventhough railroads, television and telecommunications have connected Italians throughout the peninsula, there is no question that a person’s self identy is striclty regional.
To understand the wide range of Italian cuisines, it’s essential to look at the Italian cuisine history of Italy’s 20 geographical regions. Because, in a sense, you’re looking at the cuisines of 20 separate entities: populations that, over the centuries, blended the culinary influences of indigenous peoples, invaders, settlers and neighbors, plus the introduction of foods from the Americas, to create what we call today Italian cuisine. Italy is more like a federation of different countries than a uniform place. Culinary tradition across Italy varies so widely that many cooks and food historians will argue it’s hard to define one single Italian national food culture.
For example, the traditional cuisine of the north-eastern Italian region of Friuli-Venezia-Giulia on the border of Austria and Slovenia, part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the 19th century, seems very distant from that of the island of Sicily, which has an entirely different history.
But there’s plenty that unites Italians from all regions, too: a widespread interest in quality and provenance. And, while the regional variations keep things interesting, visitors will be glad to find that today pizza for example, can be found in abundance everywhere you go in Italy.
Planning your trip to Italy
When you plan your first trip to Italy you will most likely wish to visit Rome, Florence, Venice and perhaps also Milan and Naples. These cities make sense because they are all world-class cities with great history, art, and architecture. But to have a fuller understanding of Italy’s people, culture, character and cuisine, you must also plan to include regional capitals and smaller towns.
Being a foodie in Italy, like myself, and maybe you too, it is not only about eating in well-regarded restaurants but about making connections with a culture, a lifestyle, a philosophy, a people, and their history.
Italians and their relationship with food
Eating in Italy was once completely geared to seasonal availability of foods. With today’s modern food-storage techniques and importation many ingredients are now available year-round, but Italians still tend to eat many foods at the time of year when they are fully ripe and available from local farmers. The arrival of seasonal foods is often celebrated with a festival called a sagra, that has ancient roots both in pagan culture and the Church. The idea is to thank the land and the deities for the food.
This is not unlike Thanksgiving as celebrated in North America but with two important differences. Thanksgiving is an observance of general bounty rather than the celebration of the arrival of an ingredient. Also Thanksgiving is a family holiday, while a sagra is observed publicly by the extended family of an entire town. Many of these events date back centuries and will give you profound insight into the spirit of the people of a particular place.
Why your favorite Italian foods don’t exist in Italy
Italian cuisine is the most popular “ethnic” food in the world. Pizza and pasta can be found around the globe, as can many other Italian dishes. Yet nowhere does Italian cooking equal what you can find in its native country. This is because the quality and freshness of the ingredients can seldom be matched abroad.
The reason so many people around the world profess a fondness of Italian food is that they have been able to eat a facsimile of it in their hometowns. As a result of decades of Italian migration to countries throughtout Europe, South and North America and Australia, it is possible to eat Italian food everywhere.
When most people think of Italian food it is typically an adaptation of Neapolitan food, spaghetti, tomatoes, garlic, mozzarella, pizza, rustic red wine plus a few dishes from other parts of Italy that have become internationalized like fettucine alfredo, veal Milanese, chicken cacciatore, shrimp “scampi”, spagehtti and meatballs, all of these bear little resemblance to what the original dishes were. Almost every dish in Italy has local roots and is best eaten in its place of origin. For example spaghetti with fresh tomato sauce can be found throughout the country, nowhere is it more delicious than in its native Campania.
Another reason that Italian food was easy to reproduce in foreign lands is that many of the basic ingredients were available to immigrants. One of the most crucial turning points in world history was also an important factor in Italian cuisine. When a Ligurian sailor named Cristoforo Colombo was sent by the king and queen of Spain in search of riches in India and he wound up in the Americas, he found many foods that did not exist in Europe at that time. Imagine that there were no tomatoes, potatoes, cornmeal, sweet and hot peppers, green or other beans, zucchini, pumpkin, chocolate on the Italian peninsula in 1491. The cooking of pre-Columbian Italy was a very different proposition than what we know it today.
Tip number one to eating in Italy
So first rule for eating in Italy is to set aside all preconceptions and approach dining afresh. For example, portions in Italian restaurants abroad are bigger than those in Italy. For many tourists in Italy, especially those from north America, there is a felling of being cheated because portions do not overflow on a plate.
Tip number two to eating in Italy
The reason Italian food is so outstanding in Italy is that cooks in Italy had the innate creativity and resourcefulness to take unknown ingredients and find a way to bring out their best characteristics. So the second important concept for you to understand is that the guiding principle of Italian cuisine is to honor the flavor of an ingredient by letting it shine, rather than submerging it in a combination of other ingredients and then drowning it in a sauce. Chefs in Italy are very concerned with what is called the materia prima.
Many Italians despite ever busier lives still go to market most every day to buy the freshest ingredients available and their knowledge of terrain and geography far exceeds that of most other peoples. So they will look for potatoes from Avezzano (Abruzzo), onions from Tropea (Calabria), peppers from Cuneo (Piemonte), cherries from Marostica (Veneto) or Vignola (Emilia Romagna), mozzarella from Benevento (Campania), lentils from Castellucio (Umbria), peas from Lazio, oranges from Sicily and so on. It is not about marketing but understanding that soil and climate do affect the flavor of a product.
Tip number three to eating in Italy
Tip number three is that you should follow the rules of the season, and the region you are in. Become a culinary geographer like Italians are, develop an aquaintance with Italian food products and the places they come from and you will better know what to eat where and when.
Perhaps one of the first things one will notice when coming from north America to Italy is the quality of ingredients. Italians pride themselves on utilizing fresh local produce and products in their cooking. Even the hamburgers you might find at a local restaurant taste better!
The lack of knowledge means visitors to Italy may feel frustrated and spent their money on less than satisfying dining experiences. Sure some of the tourist menus might seem appealing but not the palate. Savy travelers tailor their research and expectations for the best experiences.
A sad fact is that most tourists do not know the difference between stereotypical Italian food and those emblematic of a culture and tradition – Fred Plotkin
Italian Food is Not What You Think
There are some Italian restaurants outside Italy that don’t really help with the misconceptions foreigners have about “Italian food.” Many foreign visitors to Italy think they know what “Italian cuisine” is as soon as they arrive. They walk into restaurants expecting “peperoni pizza” to be pizza with spicy cured sausage slices on it. They think spaghetti always comes with meatballs. And they can’t believe no restaurant menu they look at has the famous fettucine Alfredo on it. If you don’t know what’s wrong with the three examples I just listed, then you need to keep reading (I address those misconceptions here below). Also when talented chefs cook Italian food in other nations, they are often sorely tempted to adapt flavor, portion size and the organization of meals to local tastes.
Where is the spaghetti and meatballs on the menu?
Spaghetti and meatballs aren’t a thing in Italy. Oh, Italians eat meatballs, but they’re served as part of the meat course and not on top of pasta. Meatballs in Italy are called “polpette,” and they’re usually served with some of the delicious sauce in which they’ve been cooking. There are meat sauces that go with certain pastas, too, such as ragù alla bolognese, but if you’re searching for a big plate of spaghetti and meatballs in Italy you will not find it (unless you are eating in a restaurant catering to tourists).
Spaghetti Bolognese, an Italian classic
It’s the world’s favourite Italian dish – except it doesn’t actually exist in Italy, as first-time visitors are frequently disappointed to learn. In Bologna, you’re much more likely to find tagliatelle al ragù on a restaurant menu: thicker, flatter strands of pasta in a thinner meat and tomato-based sauce. Many other supposedly classic Italian dishes don’t exist in the country either: including Fettuccine Alfredo, marinara sauce, and even garlic bread. Often, such recipes are reinterpretations of Italian cuisine created elsewhere in the world, and in Italy you’ll only find them in restaurants catering to tourists.
How do Italians make lasagna?
Lasagna – layered with red sauce and ricotta – is common in American and Italian American kitchens. For most Italians, lasagne come from the northern city of Bologna. Bolognese lasagne noodles are combined a rich meat sauce called ragù, bechamel sauce and grated parmigiano cheese.
Why does my ‘peperoni pizza’ not have sausage on it?
As you’ve probably guessed, peperoni don’t mean what you think it means. With two Ps, it’s spicy sausage that’s thinly sliced and one of the most popular pizza toppings outside Italy. With one P, it’s the Italian word for “peppers.” So that “peperoni pizza” you ordered will come covered with peppers. Want something like the cured sausage you love back home? Then you’ll want to order salame piccante (hot salami slices).
In Naples, where pizza was born, you’ll find the world-famous margherita (mozzarella, tomato, and basil). In Sicily, you’ll nibble on sfincione, a thick “pizza” with no tomatoes. And, in Rome, you’ll encounter thin-crust, crispy pizzas.
Traditionally, Italians do not serve pizza by the slice. You get a whole pizza to yourself. However in some cities due to the faster pace of life, you will find the places that sell pizza by the slice.
What about Alfredo sauce?
Yes, Alfredo sauce comes from a chef named Alfredo who named the dish after himself, but he neither invented it nor popularized the name in Italy. In Italy, the “sauce” in question is simply melted butter and a little bit of parmigiano mixed with otherwise plain pasta. Italians still eat this simply dressed pasta, and they call it pasta in bianco or pasta al burro, depending on where you are, for “white pasta” or “pasta with butter.” The translation of this very home-based comfort food becoming an American sensation stem from a pair of 1920’s Hollywood stars visiting Rome. They dined in a restaurant operated by an Italian named – you guessed it – Alfredo, whose pregnant wife was eating that simple preparation of pasta, butter, and cheese to help with her morning sickness. The Americans wanted the same thing he was serving to his own wife and loved the dish they ate so much they told everyone at home about it. When American visitors started showing up asking for Alfredo’s fettucine, of course he obliged. The restaurant that started it all still exists in Rome and is now a tourist attraction. Incidentally, the article “Who is Alfredo Sauce, and why do Americans keep asking about him?” is an excellent read on the subject, both funny and educational.
Here is the take away as to what Italian food is
While non-Italians tend to think of “Italian food” as one homogeneous menu, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Italy is intensely regional, and a dish considered one city’s signature will be unheard of 100km (or less) down the road. This is one of the many reasons why ordering a restaurant’s daily special is a great way to sample what’s truly local. With 20 regions in Italy, a gastronomic map of the country quickly turns into an intricate patchwork of culinary specialties and ingredients. That kind of perspective on Italy can help a traveler’s dining itinerary into some delicious ways.
Italian food isn’t one big menu available throughout the country (unless you visit restaurants that cater to tourists and not locals). But what’s more, it’s likely to be quite unlike the Italian food you’ve gotten used to eating back home. When you have an itinerary for your Italy trip all worked out, do yourself a favor and find out what ingredients and dishes for which each region or city is known. Take the seasons into account, too. You’ll end up with a list of things to look for on menus that’s likely to be much more diverse than you’d expect, and far more delicious than you can imagine.
Ready to experience Italy like a local with locals?
Our shared passion of good food are savored when we visit small family-run producers on our cultural vacations, enjoy farm-to-table meals, and dine with the locals in trattorias and osterias, where only small groups like ours can be invited. And we like to pair each dining experience with regional wines. We visit vineyards, local farms, offer cooking classes, introducing you to amazing artisans who share their hospitality and life experiences with you. You will experience the local customs and traditions they follow, taking your travel experience to a much deeper level.
When you eat out with us, you will always do it like the locals, with locals.
Audrey helps you make your vacation truly memorable by offering small group journeys and custom guided journeys
