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Wednesday, May 23. 2012

Terrible Italian food

An amusing article, and at least 50% accurate: Basta la Pasta!


In the USA, Italian food can range from the sublime to the inedible. Same thing in Italy. Fortunately, Mrs. BD and I know where to go and what to order, in both countries.


Even Domino's pizza beats the Italian stuff 90% of the time. And, as I have said many times, pasta with red sauce is only fit to be eaten to prevent death by starvation. They don't even like it in Italy, except in Naples which is not exactly known for haute cuisine.

Posted by Bird Dog in Food and Drink at 19:22 | Comments (12) | Trackbacks (0)

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How does Italy fare in non-Italian cuisine? How's the Chinese? I just got done finishing some leftover egg fu young from a joint around the corner which was very good, and cheap.
#1 model_1066 on 2012-05-23 20:29 (Reply)
I learned to cook Italian from my mother who was not Italian but we lived in an Italian nieghborhood. We were poor and the ingredients we used often reflected that fact. years later I learned there is no substitute for ample sausage and hamburger in the sauce and the lasagna. Add a pound of cooked Italian sausage to your red sauce and you will be licking the plate.
#2 GoneWithTheWind on 2012-05-23 21:41 (Reply)
We don't eat pasta with red sauce because my husband is allergic to tomatoes. Our favorites are garlic butter spaghetti with the garlic minced and sauteed in the butter to make a browned butter sauce which we eat once a week, sometimes adding pancetta, and spaghetti carbonara. There's an Italian restaurant near us which makes a fettucini Alfredo with crumbled bacon which is quite delicious, and we had some very good lasagna there a couple of weeks ago.
Most of the Texans have to have their Mexican food fix once a week [Tex/Mex]. I can take or leave Mexican food, but I do adore pasta... good pasta that is.

Marianne
#3 Marianne Matthews on 2012-05-23 23:09 (Reply)
I think you are crazy. If you don't like pasta with tomato sauce, it is because you have never had it well prepared. I have had it at least three times a week my whole life, and I am in my late fifties. And as far as bad food in Italy, it is possible to find some, but you have to search for it.

domino's beats Italian pizza?

de gustibus non disputantum, but that really is a sick remark. bleeecch
#4 peter on 2012-05-24 06:34 (Reply)
remember this article was written by Americans, with an American pallate :)
Americans with a better than average (for Americans certainly, most people even) taste when it comes to food, but Americans still. They do have their cultural biasses when it comes to food, can't be helped.

That said, pizza isn't an Italian invention even if it now is an Italian staple food and many Italian places making/serving it will be the cheaper ones. Ever tried pubfood? It's often poor quality wherever in the world the pub is located. And when it comes to takeaway pizza, Domino's is above average, can hold its own with most pubfood I've had over the decades.
#4.1 J.T. Wenting on 2012-05-25 22:59 (Reply)
Gleaning remnants from the pantry one night when my daughter's friends unexpectedly showed up.

The best pasta dish ever:

Roasted garlic, dry cured green olives, lemons, zucchini, olive oil, linguine noodles and vacpacked tuna fish.

It was delishus!
#5 Jewel (Link) on 2012-05-24 10:23 (Reply)
I do not like cooked tomatoes, so I do not eat red sauce. real Italian food (at least what I had in Italy) does not use red sauce much. my favourite - the bread and the seafood.
#6 missred on 2012-05-24 10:24 (Reply)
"Domino's beats the Italian stuff 90% of the time" ?

That's just batso!

Seriously
#7 HUH? on 2012-05-24 10:45 (Reply)
Maybe the Lombardy region is extraordinary. I spent 6 months working in Milan and did short trips in the region on weekends. The worst meal I ever had was "very good." And most of them were excellent. This held true for large vs. small, expensive vs. cheap, metropolitan vs. countryside.

I like Domino's pizza, but the brick oven pizzas I had in Lombardy were VASTLY superior.

On a side note, I had assumed France would give a similar experience. Last year, we spent 3 weeks visiting Paris, the Loire Valley, Toulouse, and St. Emilion. While we had some truly superb meals, we also had many very ordinary and even not very good ones. Who knew the Italians cared more for food than the French?
#8 eb knott on 2012-05-24 10:58 (Reply)
Just like American Mexican food is nothing like REAL Mexican food; American Italian food is nothing like REAL Italian food. And who cares exactly? If people think pasta with tomato sauce is delicious, then they can think that. I get really tired of certain people deciding for the rest of us what is good food and what is not. What is 'real' Italian cuisine and what is American junk. If someone thinks it tastes good, why do you or anyone else care if it does not meet your standards of 'good'?

Very few of us will have the opportunity to fly to Italy and eat 'real' Italian food, is that so awful? Get off your snooty horse and just enjoy eating without criticizing so much!
#9 KJB on 2012-05-24 11:10 (Reply)
I have to take issue with "American Italian food is nothing like REAL Italian food". That might be true in some parts of the country. It is simply not true in parts of America where Italian is still spoken at home. I grew up around Boston and the Italian food was Italian and all of my Italian friends spoke Italian to their grandparents because they couldn't speak English. They wouldn't have allowed a Dominos pizza in the house.
#10 GoneWithTheWind on 2012-05-24 15:43 (Reply)
Pasta came to Italy from China, so check with the Chinese for the correct method of preparation.
Mama sua!
#11 PacRim Jim (Link) on 2012-05-24 20:31 (Reply)

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