DailyDirt: That's A Spicy Meatball, But It's Not Italian...?

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from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Fri, Sep 26th 2014 5:00pm — Michael Ho

It can be difficult to nail down the definition of American food since immigrants from all over the world have settled in the US and created a distinctly different varieties of their traditional cuisines. If you didn't realize it, fortune cookies are not a Chinese dessert (Chinese-American, yes). So what other foods aren't as authentic as you might think? Here are just a couple other examples.

Spaghetti and meatballs sounds like a classic Italian dish for dinner, but it's actually not a common meal for people in Italy. Meatballs in Italy are generally smaller than their American counterparts and served separately from pasta. [url]
The names of pasta varieties can be confusing because there are so many kinds and they look vaguely similar to the casual observer. Thankfully, there's an infographic to help you figure out the difference between rotini and marziani. [url]
Italian restaurants in the US have created several dishes that are definitely not from Italy. One example is Lobster Fra Diavolo. Lobsters are not common in Italy, first of all. However, there could have been a similar dish with a different kind of crustacean. Maybe. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: cuisine, entree, food, infographic, italian, lobster, meatball, pasta, spaghetti

7 Comments

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I guess wow fail, 26 Sep 2014 @ 6:06pm

Don't hit enter
Yup fail, I hit enter before I could enter my enlighting comment of I could really go for a pizza

Fail all around
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Fail more, 26 Sep 2014 @ 6:22pm

Re: Don't hit enter
So since I seem to be alone, anyone in downtown Toronto I recommend yummypizza, also on common meals in italy, my information comes from my mom in the mid sixties but she hitched through turkey (stupidly and almost fatally) and a bunch of the rest of post WWII eourpe, including Italy and there is not much meat in Italian meals and meat balls is not actually at all, the meat is usually separate dishes and there is not meat balls at all it's like Chinese food in north America, mostly made up..
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Lawrence D’Oliveiro, 26 Sep 2014 @ 7:35pm

That Pasta Chart ...
... is just crying out for an Android app.
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Whoever, 26 Sep 2014 @ 10:29pm

Italian meals
There is plenty of meat in Italian meals. It's just not served with the pasta. So, if you only have pasta dishes, you won't get much meat, but that's like complaining that if you only eat appetizers you don't get much meat.

Milanese speciality is "Cotoletta alla milanese", which is big hunk of battered and fried veal and not much else.
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Stefano, 26 Sep 2014 @ 11:15pm

and don't ask..
And, please, don't ask for 'Spaghetti Bolognese' in Bologna. They do not exist.
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nasch (profile), 29 Sep 2014 @ 4:52pm

If you didn't realize it, fortune cookies are not a Chinese dessert (Chinese-American, yes).

Actually they originated in Japan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortune_cookie

Lobsters are not common in Italy, first of all. However, there could have been a similar dish with a different kind of crustacean.

Prawns maybe?
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Shah Inc (profile), 7 Nov 2019 @ 8:35am

Italian restaurants downtown orlando
Very informative post. Also Christinis Ristorante Italiano is a fine dining italian restaurant in Orlando Florida. It is located near International Drive, the Convention Center, Disney and Universal Studios on Restaurant Row. Here is the site https://www.christinis.com
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