The food of my people

Having now eaten quite a few meals in both Southern and Northern Italy, I'm struck, as I'm sure many other Americans are, by how different Italian food is from Italian-American food.

For one thing, Italians keep the focus on the pasta, not the sauce. Here in the north there's often no sauce at all, just a little butter and sage or a bit of broth. And, of course, some grated Parmesan. 

These are tortelli di erbette that we enjoyed at Trattoria Gambarato, in the countryside outside of Parma.

Although sauces are more assertive in Southern Italy, they're there to enhance the pasta, not steal its thunder.

Take a look at this dish of cavatelli in tomato sauce, which we had at Maurizio Petti's Terrazze Miranda in the little Molisano town of Casalciprano. Yes, the cavatelli are bathed in the ragu, but they're not drowning in it. (And they were wonderful.)


Whereas in Italian restaurants in the U.S. the abundance and richness of spaghetti sauce can make it seem like the whole point of the dish, with the spaghetti itself relegated to the role of sidekick.

This is a photo I grabbed more or less at random off Google. There were plenty more like it.


Another noticeable difference is that Italian-American food, like most American food of all kinds, tends to involve a fair amount of sweetness. Italian Italians aren't so big on sweet, and they really enjoy bitterness--a taste sensation that most Americans can't seem to tolerate. There's so much sugar in American spaghetti sauce, especially at the low end of the market, that it can taste almost candied. Italians tend to reserve serious sweetness for desserts, and even there they don't seem to like the teeth-jangling, almost acidic sweetness of American treats like candy bars and caramel cake. Mostarda di frutta, a relish of candied fruit that's served with the boiled meats and sausages of bollito misto, is perhaps a rule-proving exception, although mustard oil gives it a seriously spicy edge.

Meanwhile most American palates wouldn't tolerate the bitter aperitifs that are so popular here, or the bitter greens (radicchio, cima di rape, chicory) that are often presented lightly cooked or raw, as salads, with nothing to counteract their bite except some olive oil, vinegar and salt. When radicchio does appear in American salads it's often mild to the point of flavorlessness compared to the far more assertive Italian version.

And that brings up the issue of salads. While I am a big fan of Italian cooking as it is practiced in Italy, salads are one area where my loyalties lie squarely on the Italian-American side.

I know there are plenty of great Italian recipes for vegetables--I've enjoyed some and I've made some. But I've encountered very few of them in either restaurants or Italian homes. Italians seem to embrace the idea that if vegetables are good and fresh (and even if they're not), you don't need to do anything but boil, steam, or lightly grill them and bring them to the table. Techniques such as sauteing with oil and garlic, adding tomatoes or cream or grated cheese, or oven-roasting till edges caramelize and crisp--maybe Italians use them, but they've hardly ever done it around me. (For more complaints on this score, see this earlier blog post.)

The same minimalism dominates salads. A few decades ago, ordering a salad in a restaurant here entitled you to a bowl of beautifully fresh lettuce or bitter radicchio, a bottle of olive oil, another of wine vinegar, and a salt shaker. Period. Nowadays an insalata mista might include both green lettuce and radicchio, plus some little grape tomatoes, perhaps bits of shredded carrot or red cabbage, and--a disgusting addition, in my opinion--a sprinkling of canned corn. (Balsamic vinegar is also frequently offered, perhaps reflecting the influence of America's sweet tooth.)

What you won't get, however, is salad dressing of any kind, or onions of any kind, two things that I would argue are indispensable for a really good salad.

Sure, great olive oil is delicious, but day after day the thrill palls, and anyway most of the time the olive oil at the restaurants we patronize and in our own kitchen frankly isn't that great. Adding garlic, a little mustard, and some anchovies chopped into paste to that olive oil, plus perhaps a bit of tomato paste, as well as some good vinegar, makes an austere bowl of raw leaves into a delicious indulgence.

Italian-American salads go even further. The same excitement about abbondanza that brought us the kitchen sink pizza has been applied to the salad bowl. Tomatoes, sliced onion, cucumbers, yes, but also bits of salami, provolone, and mozzarella,marinated artichokes,  croutons, olives, peperoncini, beans, hard-boiled eggs--just about anything might get tossed in. (Anything except canned corn.) Doused with a good vinaigrette, it's a salad that eats like a meal and a half.

Salad at our house

Yes, a salad with too much ballast can be gross. And I wouldn't want to make a habit of even a relatively moderate version of a kitchen-sink salad, especially not as part of a bigger lunch or dinner.

But adding salad dressing and some onion to the lettuce, plus a few vegetable enhancements--maybe just some thin slices of raw fennel--seems essential to me. Which perhaps means that as yet I am still more Italian-American than I am Italian.