Five Italian Foods In America That are Not From Italy

Italians sometimes get miffed at the unspeakable creations that we Americans call “Italian Food.” We may get it wrong much of the time, but I would remind Italy that labeling foods Italian, while it is sometimes branding, is more often simple love. We LOVE Italian food! Even though we may mess it up, we mess it up with an abiding respect and love in our hearts for the cuisine. That said, there are some American Italian foods not exactly the real thing. While some of these dishes come from Italian Americans, they either do not come directly from Italy or feature ingredients or techniques that wouldn’t be used together in Italy.

I’ll be honest with you, I struggled with naming this article. It is not precisely true to say that certain dishes are not “from Italy” unless we can narrowly define the word “from” to mean the dish was created wholly in Italy. I don’t think this is an honest way to define the word “from” in this case so, the title of this article is meant to help you find the article more than it is meant to represent an accurate portrayal. I will explain more but in almost all cases, the “American” Italian food that is often represented as “un-Italian” has strong Italian roots, and these foods are no exception.

1. Spaghetti Bolognese

We shouldn’t blame American home cooks for this. We should blame pretentious foodie seeking to correct our names for Italian dishes and getting it wrong. I grew up eating a “spaghetti sauce” made with ground beef, canned tomatoes, onions, garlic, Italian herbs, and other ingredients that were stewed for hours and served over spaghetti. Yes, OVER spaghetti. Many others remember a similar “spaghetti sauce.”

But, at some point, people started calling this “spaghetti Bolognese” after being prompted by uber-educated foodies bent on correcting our food language. Except, these meat sauces or “Ragùs” are not Bolognese. Our American “spaghetti and meat sauce” is more akin to the “Sunday Sauce” (or Sunday Gravy) of Italian American tradition than Ragù alla Bolognese.

There are two dishes that use the most famous sauce from Bologna, Tagliatelle al Ragù alla Bolognese and Lasagne Verdi alla Bolognese. The former is the most well-known. The first thing to know is that the dish is not called Tagliatelle al Ragu alla Bolognese outside Bologna. It would be silly to include the “alla Bolognese” part. So, the usual name for the dish is just “Tagliatelle al Ragù.” You may find it called this on some menus.

Tagliatelle is a long, flat, and wide pasta. Fresh egg tagliatelle pasta is usually used, but dried pasta is not unheard of. Short pastas like farfalle (called stricchetti in Bologna), penne rigate, and rigatoni are sometimes used. Gnocchi is also used, a favorite of Food TV competitions.

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While there is not one fixed recipe for the sauce, there are certain fixed parameters that define it and differentiate it from the sauces we make for spaghetti, which are heavy on tomatoes. Bolognese starts with onions, carrots, and celery, finely minced, and sautéed in butter, lard, olive oil, or a butter-olive oil combo. To this ground meats are added, which may be beef, pork, veal, or a combination of any of these. Pancetta or prosciutto may also be used, followed by wine, and then tomato paste or puree. This mixture is slowly simmered for a few hours and then milk is added. Unlike in typical spaghetti and meat sauce, tomatoes are not the star. It is a thick, velvety, and rich meat-based sauce.

Read more about what defines Authentic Ragu alla Bolognese here, and get a real recipe.

Typical romantic vision of the Italian grandmother making the daily fresh pasta.

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2. Spaghetti and Meatballs

Of course, they have meatballs in Italy. They are called polpettes and are usually not the giant-sized Italian meatballs we get in America, but are more like golf balls. In Abruzzo, they are even smaller, like marbles. These are called polpettines.

Meatballs are not served over spaghetti in Italy, however. They are eaten as a meal in itself or used in soups. As well, there is not one standard meat or mix of meats used. Just about anything can be used, including turkey or fish.

Huge meatballs of beef, pork, and veal, covered in marinara sauce and served over spaghetti were an invention of Italian American immigrants, who, upon arriving here in the late 1800s to early 1900s, found meat to be much more affordable. Of course, this didn’t mean they were dining out on prime rib and bringing home the choicest cuts of beef. But, they were able to use meat as a staple food, as in the form of ridiculously large meatballs, instead of as a luxury. But remember, you always need breadcrumbs to make a good meatball, and Italian American meatballs are no different!

At the same time, they found an abundance of canned tomatoes and dried spaghetti at the grocery stores, but not much else, so marinara sauce, meatballs, and spaghetti came together.

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3. Fettucine Alfredo

Fettucine Alfredo is an Italian dish, but most Italians have never heard of it. If they have, it’s the American version of it. The familiar American version of Fettucine Alfredo contains heavy cream, cheese, and butter. The original dish only used butter and cheese. This dish is the subject of a “creation myth.” It is claimed to have been created in Rome, Italy in the early 1900s by restaurant owner Alfredo di Lelio. According to the most told story, his wife had lost her appetite after giving birth to their first child, and the chef created the dish to stimulate her appetite and get her to eat. He made a fresh fettuccine and dressed it with a lot of butter and grated parmigiano reggiano cheese. The plan worked and his wife started eating.

Alfredo originally called the dish fettucine al triplo burro or “fettuccine with triple butter” but later changed it to fettuccine all’Alfredo. It is often claimed that there were other “secret” aspects to the dish such as adding oil to the pasta dough or cooking the pasta in milk. None of these tales claim that it had a sauce of heavy cream.

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So the story goes, but Lelio never created a new dish. There was already a standard Italian dish called Burro e Parmigiano, or “butter and parmesan.” This type of pasta is called pasta bianco (also pasta in bianco), or “white pasta.” The simplest pasta bianco is pasta with butter and perhaps olive oil, called “fettuccine al burro.” Alfredo seems to have simply added more butter to the standard Burro e Parmigiano. His first name for the dish, fettuccine al triplo burro, seems to indicate that he was aware that he was making a variation of a standard dish. This type of pasta dish dates back to the 15th century. The dish never uses cream in Italy and Italians do not know it as Alfredo.

Giving a simple dish of fettuccine al burro or fettuccine al burro e Parmigiano to a sick or convalescent person, as was the chef’s wife, is a common practice in Italy, so nothing that di Lelio did seems to have been novel.

Regardless, the dish became popular with Americans, especially some prominent celebrities like Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, who visited di Lelio’s restaurant, Alfredo alla Scrofa, and loved the dish so much that they helped popularize it in the states. George Rector, an American food writer, wrote about “Aldredo’s noodles” during the late 1920s and early 1930s. He described the elaborate tableside preparation of the dish and even described violin music and tableware made of gold. Many magazines, cookbooks, and guidebooks helped familiarize the public with Alfredo’s “creation” during the 1920s and beyond. Di Lelio certainly didn’t mind the attention. He soon began calling himself Il Re delle Fettuccine or “The King of Fettucine.”

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While various publications used various names for the dish, like noodles Alfredo or Alfredo’s spaghetti, “fettuccine all’Alfredo eventually took hold and became Fettuccine Alfredo by the 1960s.

The Pennsylvania Dutch Noodle Company, in 1966, began selling “fettuccine egg noodles” and included a recipe for Alfredo on the back label. This recipe included the original Parmesan cheese and butter but also added Swiss cheese and cream. A sauce of heavy cream, butter, and Parmesan cheese has since become the standard for American Fettuccine Al Fredo. Purists say that cream should never be added to a “real” Fettuccine Alfredo. What they mean to say is that cream should not be added to Fettuccine fettuccine al burro e Parmigiano.

So, while di Lelio’s appropriation of a dish that bore his name was a real Italian pasta dish, the modern version of Fettuccine Alfredo we know in the United States is an American version of a dish with Italian roots. And while Italians are familiar with pasta in bianco, they do not know it as Fettucine all’Alfredo, for good reason. There is no such thing as Alfredo with chicken, shrimp, peas, or various other added vegetables. Both the cream-centered sauce and the concept of using the sauce as a base for other added ingredients is American.

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4. Chicken (Or Veal) Parmesan

This is another case case where it is not true that the dish is not Italian, but that the American version of the dish includes ingredients or techniques not used in Italy. Many sources claim that Eggplant Parmesan is Italian, but chicken parmesan, aka, chicken parm, is not. It is said that the concept of chicken parmesan came from “parmigiana di melanzane” where melanzane is an Italian word for eggplant. This dish is layers of fried eggplant, tomato sauce, and parmesan cheese. It’s origin is claimed to be either in Campania, Sicily, Parma, or Emilia-Romagna. The eggplant itself is a staple food of Italy.

It does seem to be true that chicken and veal parmesan, as they exist in America, were inspired by Eggplant Parmesan. But, there are other Italian dishes that are clearly precedents. For example, cotoletta alla bolognese is a dish of prosciutto and Parmesan cheese, but no tomato sauce. Perhaps more important, is a veal dish called Cotolette alla parmigiana, breaded and fried veal cutlets that are baked in an oven with a parmesan and stock topping until the cheese melts. This is clearly “veal parmesan” without tomato sauce. It would seem more appropriate to think of American-style “parm” as meldings of different Italian dishes of a similar concept, rather than only a substitution of chicken or veal for eggplant. Regardless, all “parmesan” dishes in the US are the creation of Italian immigrants.

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5. Italian Dressing

There are not many pre-prepared or bottled salad dressings in Italy. Typically, Italians dress their salad at the table with olive oil and salt or olive oil, salt, and vinegar (or lemon juice). This is not much different than how the French dress salads with simple vinaigrettes, making American bottled French Dressings and Italian Dressings similarly misnamed.

This is not to say that an Italian would never mix oil and vinegar with various herbs and spices, similar to commercially bottled sauces in America, although they never add sugar.

The first bottled “Italian” salad dressing in America was Wishbone Italian Dressing, first bottled in 1948 and based on the popular dressing from Wishbone restaurant in Kansas City, Missouri, which began in 1945. Ken’s Steakhouse Salad Dressing, first bottled in 1958, was also based on an “Italian” dressing, but it wasn’t called an Italian Dressing on the label. Ken’s Foods is now a major producer of salad dressing and its Italian Dressing is not named to differentiate it from the other offerings.

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Today, it is difficult to say which commercial dressing is more similar to a “dressing” found in Italy. The main difference is that Wishbone uses a large amount of red pepper, while Ken’s uses none. Wishbone, unlike Ken’s, contains sugar. Of the two, Wishbones has the most “natural” ingredients, including vinegar and lemon juice concentrate. Neither dressings use olive oil. In fact, controversy arose and a court case occurred due to Ken’s Foods’ earlier claim of using “Extra Virgin Olive Oil” on its label when olive oil was only a very small proportion of the oil used.

However, I disagree with most sources when who claim neither of these dressings is “Italian.” They are certainly inspired by Italian dressings. Again, this is a case of using ingredients that are not used in Italy, while being inspired by Italian cuisine.

Certainly, American bottled Italian dressings are closer to how Italians dress a salad than American French dressings, which bear almost no resemblance to a French vinaigrette.