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Talk:Italian-American cuisine/Archive 1

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Archive 1

Old discussions

A few concerns about recent additions to this page -- I'm not too sure about some of them simply because they're equally well-represented in Italian-Italian cooking. I'm also iffy about using the Italian-American phonetic spellings -- they aren't always consistent and often are very different from their Italian equivalents. Haikupoet 17:12, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Pasta Fagioli

When people pronounce it Pasta Fazul it makes angels cry. I suppose that can be left in the article because a lot of New Jersey-Italians actually do pronounce it that way. But pasta fagioli is not only from the south, and if you were to pronounce the dish that way in Florence you would either not be understood, or be laughed out of the Osteria. 67.176.41.21 22:26, 26 April 2006 (UTC) Alex (BTW I now have the name: ABart26 08:19, 23 June 2006 (UTC))

  • Don't forget that Neapolitan-Sicilian is quite a bit different from Florentine, and it's not too hard to see how the Latin phaseolus could diverge in different directions like that. So no, you wouldn't say it that way in Florence or Rome, but most of the Italian immigrants in the US had ancestors from the south of Italy, so like it or not that's the dish's most common name on this side of the Atlantic. Haikupoet 06:29, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

skimming down

Is polenta really Italian american? No, neither is a frittata. They are Italian dishes that are also served in America. ABart26 06:51, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Emigrant cuisines

There was a note on the page mentioning Italian emigrant food in countries other than the US (I removed it because it was out of place in the article, but it made a good point, thus this note). I agree that links to such would be a very good idea, but I don't really know if there's any articles on the subject to link to. I know at the very least there's a lot of Italian diaspora in South America and Australia, so some information on those would make very good link fodder. Haikupoet 17:44, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I think Italian food in Australia will be a lot more similar to Italian food served in Italy than Italian-American food. Antonio Carluccio, a London-based Italian restaurateur and a BBC celebrity chef, once remarked that Italian-Australians prying in the food industry remain faithful to a lot of more manual practices in preparing food while those back home have already john the bandwagons of taking shortcuts using more automatic processes like using blenders etc. Carluccio believes this is a conscious efforts of Italian immigrants in Australia of keeping their heritage. One thing that makes Italian food in Australia more authentic is the later arrival times of Italian migrants to Australia (post-World War II) when compared with those who arrived at Ellis Island from 1880 to 1920.
I think a comparison between the recipes of Patsy's in New York with Grossi Florentino in Melbourne will reveal how one generation removed in terms of immigration can create such a big difference in Italian restaurant food. --JNZ 07:58, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Status of Italian-American cuisines among Italians in Italy today

I have read books by first-generation Italians who live in Britain and prying in the high-end food and restaurant trade, like Antonio Carluccio and Giorgio Locatelli of the Locanda Locatelli fame. They seem to hold a pretty contemptuous attitude towards Italian-American cooking of the Italian-American red-sauce joints of the Rao's or Patsy's varieties. In contrast, Italian-American chefs preparing "authentically Italian" Italian food identical to what's cooked in early 21st century Rome, Milan, or anywhere else in Italy, like Mario Batali, appear to be more tolerant of Italian-American food. Is it because the Italian-American cuisine's approach of Americanizing the process of cooking, and running in contrary to the Slow Food approach that both Carluccio and Locatelli take? Are there literatures on the contemporary Italians' take of the Italian-American cuisine? --JNZ 09:09, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Who knows? There probably is, but I don't have any in my library, and I do have quite a bit of that material. Besides, those people are fundamentally missing the point, as is anyone who doesn't recognize the distinction between Italian-Italian and Italian-American. If you can find it and reference it, add it, but it may lack relevance. Haikupoet (talk) 04:44, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

A lot of these people fail to understand that Italian American food in restaurants is very different from what most italian americans serve in their home. 173.48.18.151 (talk) 00:55, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Overhaul: Changes made for Verifiable, historic contributions

I have started working on this page and removing everything that is either hearsay, opinion, non-verifiable and just blatantly wrong. Many of the writings were quite offensive and stereotypical and had nothing to do with the actual heritage of Italian Americans and their culinary traditions, let alone the influence of Italy on United States culture. I have begun adding history, facts, references and wikipedia cross topic references to this page called "Italian American Cuisine." Calitalia (talk) 23:12, 1 February 2008 (UTC)Calitalia

Calitalia, much of what is written there is verifiable from the books listed as references -- the overwhelming southern Italian heritage of IA food, "red sauce" stereotypes, "dago red" wine, increased meat consumption, and all. Page references will take some time to look up, but virtually everything that was previously written is drawn from that material. You can take it or leave it, but although what you've added is good, please do not slash and burn an article just because you personally find it offensive or unbelievable. (Or are you going to deny that a lot of the early importers of Italian specialties were Mobbed up?) Haikupoet (talk) 04:42, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
I whole heartedly disagree with you. These are all opinions that are not verifiable and you are passing them off as such with bogus sources. The sources that I have since added to this page are very current, well known and very respected. You can find them on Television, bookstores, libraries and the internet. As an Italian-American and food professional myself, I don't know how you can make all the blanket statements that you have made, such as "red sauce" cuisine. And frankly, what do you mean by "mobbed up?" This in of itself is a problem. Your writing is editorial style. And in case you did not notice, there is a notice atop this page which reads, "This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed." 69.109.208.103 (talk) 07:12, 2 February 2008 (UTC)Calitalia
Okay, let me start with one thing. As you pointed out in your post below, trust but verify. You're Italian-American and a foodservice professional? Fine. I'm a Great American Mutt living in my parents' basement with half a wall full of cookbooks. Claimed expertise is worth precisely nothing on Wikipedia (see the saga of User:Essjay for an example of what happens when the WP community loses sight of this), and I only emphasize this point because your short edit history seems to indicate you're a newbie.
I am not stating my background to make bold claims, but only for the sake of honesty and sharing. I too have books on my wall, an education and years of career behind me; but, atlthough this is part of who I am, it does not make my entire experience, nor my entire point of view or contribution. We are all the same in that respect. I am simply saying that knowledge and experience can hopefully stir you in the right direction; i.e., it can help navigate you. The converse of that, of course, is that it can leed you to a self-fulfilling prophesy; whereas, you never thought of anything different. I am also trying to point out how people come from different backgrounds and how to be sensitive and non-assuming. I am sorry if you were upset about some of my "overhaul" edits, but perhaps we are both more self aware through this process. I think this is partly what makes wikipedia a powerful reading and learning tool. Finally, the user name associated with its "edit history" does not necessarily say everything about my or other peoples' entire experience on wikipedia. For the record, I have appreciated your passionate feedback, cross-examinations and editing. That too is all part of the work. Keep it up. 69.109.220.204 (talk) 11:36, 3 February 2008 (UTC)Calitalia
On the issue of sources, what qualifies as a legitimate source? If you can list Giada De Laurentiis (who is a top-notch cook but not at all a historian), I can certainly list the Marianis (an explicitly historical work btw) or Middione. (I could even use Jeff Smith's The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Italian, though his historical scholarship tended to be rather loose in quality, so I haven't.) (As for "mobbed up", to this day the head of Colavita is the son of a mobster. He's not in the business, but that would not have been the case in Al Capone's day.) Haikupoet (talk) 17:22, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
Honestly, I don't really care if either Giada or Rachel Ray are the most excellent cooks, as compared to others. However, they both have something to contribute. Giada may not seem to have all the "historical" credentials you think she has, but she has an exceptional family history of contributions to Italian-American culture and Italian culture at large in the world. Some things that make Giada's experience are what you cannot get from school, a book or anything like that. And as for the "mob" and your reference, this furthers my case in point. I'm not saying that Giada's family, the head of Colavita's family or any other person's family is in fact associated with the "mob." But, I will say that you can look in criminal files, novels and maybe a few other books; but, as the film "Analyze This" partly suggests, some things are out of bounds from basic understanding. The mob today is perhaps like everything else that's gone post-modern... its neither here nor there. Its a little bit of this and a little bit of that, so perhaps its perception, image and identity has gone on and changed. As time passes, what is the true weight of such a topic? Its a serious topic, certainly, but are all the Italians-Americans in the food business, or any other like trade, associated with the mob? Are they all southern Italians? And of that, what part of the entire story are we talking about? Personally, I don't feel that I need to look in a book to know that this is but one truth and that it isn't the entire truth; and, what is more, that sometimes peoples' bias allows them to believe things that are not entirely true. What some people seem to know is only part of the truth or part of the contributing social myth.69.109.220.204 (talk) 11:36, 3 February 2008 (UTC)Calitalia
I don't know the details of Italian-American cuisine history, but I'd just like to point out that historical facts (with or without quotation marks) should be based on solid historiography. Italian ancestry is not an academic merit nor does it grant a writer special privilige as an interpreter of Italian cultural history. Individual experiences should be used to describe the experience of a collective.
Peter Isotalo 17:39, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
Peter is very correct. Your personal experience only counts inasmuch as it gives you information to research, and allows you to filter out what you feel to be inaccurate sources. (Even then, however, such things are best brought to the talk page rather than edited within article.) Also, the "one truth among many" argument strays rather a lot into postmodernism and runs very much counter to the "just the facts" approach we try to promote here -- either Kennewick man (to take an example) was an ancestor to the Indian tribes whose land he was found near, or he was not -- the claims of nearby peoples can be objectively tested. (The DNA does not support this, btw.) Fundamentally, the truth is the truth, and we strive to get as close to it as possible. As far as the mob issue goes, it's absurd to say all Italian-Americans are mob-connected any more than it is to say all Chinese-Americans are members of the Triads. But it is an established fact that the Mafia, at least in times past if not so much in the last twenty years or so, was a very significant part of the urban Italian social fabric, and that Mafiosi took a big hand in the importation of Italian food goods during the mid-20th century. (The Mariani and Hill books listed in the bibliography ought to have more information on the subject.) Haikupoet (talk) 01:45, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Address these quality points

Redundancy: After re-writing many of the sections, re-formatting, etc., I think we need to re-read. I don't like blatant redundant phrases, if not necessary. Surely, its okay in some small regards, when you are fleshing out an idea, expanding it and taking on variation from the original context. But otherwise, let's try to keep the word count down, when possible.

Trust but Verify: Also, why we are trying to further ideas and put them down, its great that we are filling the page and have sources in the below; but lets better try to make actual footnootes within the text itself when possible, as well as create more hyperlinks to other cross referencing wiki-topics, so as to create a more substantiated and interesting topic with regards to what we all care about: Italian American cuisine.

Sensitivity/ User Friendliness/ Closing the "Gap" with ohers: Finally, I'm not terribly hurt by any of your comments, and I hope you are not by mine. But, lets also be very careful about how we phrase things, taking care of every little nuance when needed. While its not so much important about being "politically correct" when wanting to address a sub-topic, things should be explained thoroughly, so as to avoid confusion and create greater understanding by people of very different backgrounds and possibly very little comprehension or familiarity with what YOU are talking about. That is the idea behind encyclopedic writing... it is sort of a "User Friendliness" as to be friendly used and easily understood by everyone. Try to limit prejorative terms, or otherwise be prepared to explain them out with very clear details, verifiable details, explanations and so on. It makes ALL the difference, not just in appreciation, but in the credibility and identification by your fellow readers (and writers). You are not just talking to other Americans, but to the entire world that sources the internet. You are not just talking to fellow Italian-Americans from your own region, but to those from other regions of the United States, who may have an entirely different view than yours or approach things from a comparatively varied worldview. Calitalia (talk) 11:30, 2 February 2008 (UTC)Calitalia

Beef and Agriculture

Originally I was skeptical about beef being part of the signature Italian-American diet. Not all Italians eat a lot of beef, although the "Chianina" beef is probably amongst the best in Italia today. The industry is certainly not as large as it is in America. However, I can personally testify that cattle "ranching" and beef purveying has been a significant segment for the employment of early Italian-Americans in this country, namely in those states like California, Florida, Texas and Hawaii. (Actually, I think Hawaii is more to the Portuguese immigrant... but its an old cattle ranching state anyway). In my own family, on my father's side, they were in fact "paesano"/ "paesana" or country folk who worked on ranches and in agriculture, when they first arrived. However, I also realize that beef is an idea that was embraced when they arrived here and seemingly identifies more with the American part of their identity, than does the Italian.69.109.220.204 (talk) 20:16, 2 February 2008 (UTC)Calitalia

  • Further, I would like to point out that "Paesano" conveys these peoples greater association with the land, probably more than it does with any border, state or nation... as many of them worked and migrated across Italy, Europe, and many times across more than one state in America, before they ever settled down to stay. In this sense, "Paesano" is much more than just a friendly term, but a sort of shared "association" of experience. Its a way for what were displaced people to create a common culture that became a strong contributing segment of the beef and agriculture workers of America.69.109.220.204 (talk) 20:30, 2 February 2008 (UTC)Calitalia
  • Well, if you can provide a cite, it's all good. However, back east, the term "paesan" is pretty much standard terminology for "one of the tribe" (i.e., as a Great American Mutt, I couldn't use it), so to put such a specific association with it is a little jarring. As for the beef issue, it seems as a general rule that when beef becomes cheap and accessible to a culture, it becomes a much greater part of the local diet -- I'd offer east Asia as a parallel example. So it seems to have happened among Italian immigrants to the US -- there's plenty of Italian-American beef dishes that are either explicitly festive dishes in Italy (such as beef braciole) or just don't exist in Italy. Haikupoet (talk) 00:37, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
    • Surely, "paesano" is common among people, but it helps to understand its original meaning. The frequent use of a word in a given context does not justify its usage in of itself as being correct or appropriate. If you simply look up the topic "paesano" on wikipedia, you will see a discussion on this subject. You will be directed to the word "WOP" and its actual etymology and correct meaning. It says there, that "WOP" was " widely used in Chicago where most immigrants from Campania settled, one of its native sons Al Capone was a typical Guappo [the original spelling of the pejorative term], it was confused by the non Italian population to indicate people of Italian origins, similarly to the word “Paesano”. The word "paesano" comes from the Italian word "paese," which translates as "country" or "town." "Paesano" is acceptable among fellow Italians and Italia-Americans when not said in a patronizing tone; , whereas those other words like "WOP," "Dago," "Goombah," and "Guido" are considered mildly derogatory to highly offensive, depending who says it, how its said and in what context. This is mostly because of stigma placed from outsiders, if not from the influence of organized crime in select parts of the community. Furthermore, while it may be acceptable to use such words in television and movies like "The Sopranos" or "The Godfather," this is mostly sensational dramatization of people that live an extreme lifestyle. I assure you, for instance, that we never use the term "dago red" for wine at our family table! (Then too, I would never dare use the term with a waiter or somelier at a restaurant. Do you think respectable restaurants really serve "Dago Red" on their menu, or are willing to oblige such a request??) We have too much respect in our family for each other, the blessing of eating good food and sustenance, as well as the sharing of this experience and its tradition. Such respect means that we enjoy and have fun with each other, but we never become so jocular as to use pejorative words about our food, wine or meal. I also assure you that if my great-grandfather or grandfather heard you use such a term at the table, he would most likely yell at you, pound the table with a fist and put the fear of God in you! That's Italian-American, indeed. After keeping faith through the adverse journey from Italy to this country, it would be like a blasphemy or disrespect at the family table. Similarly, my father is not as strict, but he would look at you with disgust and pity, as if you haven't found any dignity or education for yourself over the last 100 years in America. So, to me, use of such a word either comes from "outsiders," or people that have not been enlightened or found a profound love of friends, family and the experience of eating well with each other. 69.109.220.204 (talk) 09:36, 3 February 2008 (UTC)Calitalia

Redirecting

I have noticed that when you type Italian-American Cuisine" versus "Italian American Cuisine," with or whithout the hyphan, it brings up the older or newer version of the page as it tries to redirect. Perhaps we should see if we can correct this problem. Also, note that this phenomenon can occur when you look up the topic on any search engine such as Google or Yahoo! on the internet, independent of the search box on the wikipedia homepage. And so, lets make sure we stay on the same page as we edit.69.109.220.204 (talk) 23:40, 2 February 2008 (UTC)Calitalia

Italian-American cuisine chefs?

Quite a few names on the list make the Italian types as in modern Italy, such as Lidia Bastianich, Mario Batali, Giada de Laurentiis. I would qualify those still doing red sauce ones like Rao's or West Coast types with cioppino as Italian-American instead.--JNZ (talk) 09:13, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

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