Category: Italian American Cuisine

Waves of immigration from Italy to the United States shaped what is now known as Italian American cuisine. Although it differs significantly from what you’d expect to find in Italy, there are many similarities as it draws from Sicilian cuisine in particular. Heavy on tomato sauce, garlic, and cured meats, Italian American cuisine is popular all over the world thanks to fast food chains. The term “Italian-American cuisine” refers to a type of Italian cuisine that has been adopted in the United States. Various waves of immigration and their descendants, known as Italian Americans, have shaped Italian-American cuisine throughout history. As immigrants from diverse parts of Italy settled in different parts of the United States, many of them carried their own regional Italian culinary traditions with them. Many of these cuisines and recipes became new favorites among the residents of the town, and then among all Americans. Italian-Americans frequently associate certain meals with their ancestors’ homelands. Dry pasta, tomato sauce, and olive oil are Southern Italian mainstays, whereas risotto, white sauce, and polenta are Northern Italian staples. With a growing appreciation for Italian cuisine in the U. S. and an increase in Italian imports into the United States, there has been a push to create more genuine meals that employ methods and products that are more local to Italy. Italian inventions have found their way into American food, such as espresso, which has evolved into speciality coffee beverages that are now omnipresent in American life, tiramisu, and Nutella. On the other hand, other dishes, such as pasta alla carbonara, which had never been documented in Italy during World War II, may have been influenced by an American connection to the joint conquest of Rome. We’ll help you make your own recipes, but we can’t promise it will be better than an Italian grandma.