As an American who just had some glorious fake pizza last night, I thought I hated pasta until I had good Italian, and then I realized I just hate Americanized Italian food. Except pizza, we do it better.
Pasta still isn’t my favorite, but I’ll take it if it’s authentic. My SO makes some great aglio e olio and carbonara, often with shrimp.
Wait can you explain the difference between Americanized pasta and Italian pasta? Isn’t all pasta just… pasta?
Most likely the difference between handmade pasta and dried pasta but that’s not a geographical thing
But Italians eat dried pasta… lots of it.
It’s very common in the US to just plop some pasta sauce on top of noodles for one thing… You gotta cook the pasta in the sauce real quick! If any American reads this and doesn’t do that I promise that tiny change will already improve your pasta experience.
You’re obviously not Italian…
Starting with the pasta itself (not how it’s prepared), they use different ingredients. Italian pasta is usually made from high quality duram wheat, whereas American made pastas use a variety of flours, and usually includes eggs (rare with Italian pasta), which results in a softer cooked product. That leads to cooking differences, where Italians prefer firmer texture (al dente), whereas Americans tend to have it softer.
And then we have sauces. Italians usually keep it simple with a handful of ingredients, and Americans add milk/cream, sugar, cheese, or anything else that sounds good. Americans also go overboard on the sauce, so you get a lot less of the pasta flavor (yes, pasta has flavor, y’all need to add salt to the water).
And that’s restaurant quality pasta dishes. It gets wild when you look at what’s in those prepared meals in the freezer section.
I give pizza a pass because I don’t like bread much (yes, I’ve had good Italian pizza), so loading up on toppings works really well. But I just don’t like the mushy mess that is American-style pasta.
And then we have sauces. Italians usually keep it simple with a handful of ingredients, and Americans add milk/cream, sugar, cheese, or anything else that sounds good. Americans also go overboard on the sauce, so you get a lot less of the pasta flavor
What the fuck Americans?
(yes, pasta has flavor, y’all need to add salt to the water).
Wait do Americans not do that? In that case I have to thank Italian Reunification for giving the Middle East real pasta.
Yeah, a lot of people just toss the pasta in bong boiling water and pull it out when it’s soft. Sometimes they’ll add oil to stop it from sticking (due to overcooking already soft pasta), and they’re shocked when I tell them they need to add salt.
Most pasta in the US suggests to salt the water when you boil it, I don’t think many Americans do. My mother didn’t, at least.
This may be a result of the war on salt that came from heart disease concerns of the 80s/90s.
Starting with the pasta itself (not how it’s prepared), they use different ingredients. Italian pasta is usually made from high quality duram wheat, whereas American made pastas use a variety of flours, and usually includes eggs (rare with Italian pasta), which results in a softer cooked product. That leads to cooking differences, where Italians prefer firmer texture (al dente), whereas Americans tend to have it softer.
How many times have you had pasta in America?You have some good points with the rest of your comment but this paragraph makes sound like either someone over overcooked your pasta or incorrectly used egg noodles, which are totally different and for different dishes though they look the same at a glance. I would only use egg noodles in soups and stroganoff. I just looked through all the pasta I have now, purchased from Walmart, Costco, and all the normie places: none of it has eggs, a lot of it contains durum wheat/semolina flour, and a majority of it is 100% durum. Some of it uses the phrase “al Dente” on the box, and I can tell you with good confidence that that is one of the few Italian phrases that American non-italians will know.
How many times have you had pasta in America?
Since I’m American, hundreds if not thousands of times. I’ve had it at home, at friends’ houses, and restaurants. My parents aren’t italian, just bog standard Americans.
You’re right that store bought noodles don’t have eggs, and that’s likely due to the IPO definition of spaghetti (and other pastas) to only contain duram wheat semolina and water.
My point about eggs comes from recipes like this or this (first hits when searching “spaghetti pasta noodles recipe”) that use trash flour and eggs. So if you’re being “fancy” and making the pasta at home, you’re likely to use eggs.
“al Dente”
Your typical American understands that phrase to mean “undercooked” or “crunchy.” It really just means “firm,” as in chewy instead of squishy. The fact that the default doneness in the US is soft instead of firm, which is the opposite in Italy (if they even let you order it overcooked), highlights this.
I think this is so the sauce sticks better, because Americans like a lot of sauce. Both Americans and Italians will agree that the secret to a good pasta dish is the sauce, but in Italy that means a handful of quality ingredients to complement the pasta (e.g. simmering a ragu for hours), whereas in the US it means adding a ton of processed crap to thicken it (cream, cheese, etc) and drown the pasta flavor out.
🤷 I’m also American and grew up on pasta, and while you’re dead on about the sauce and unsalted pasta water, most people in my experience know that al Dente means “firm to the bite” and cook pasta properly enough, often enough that when it’s not I’d just assume it was an accident.
I’m being a bit hyperbolic here. My point, however, is that soft pasta is pretty common here, and people do complain about properly cooked pasta. Not often, but people tend to lean more toward the overcooked end of the spectrum.
For example, most boxes of spaghetti say 10-11 min cooking, whereas I usually test around 7-8 min and stop a bit short of 10min. This can vary a little by brand, thickness, and probably altitude (I live in the Rockies so I’m used to adjusting cooking times).
I’m not some angsty chef or something, I just don’t like overcooked noodles of any variety because the texture sucks. So I just generally avoid pasta for the most part. I don’t make lasagna because I’m not willing to spend the time to do it well, but I do occasionally make something like aglio e olio because it’s fast and easy to do well.
As someone who makes pizza from scratch every week, I love all forms of pizza from fast food US pizza (like Dominos), to “drunk” US pizza dipped in ranch, to NY pizza, to Chicago deep dish, but what I make at home is always simple Italian pizza with just a few ingredients: dough, a sauce made from San Marzano tomatoes specifically canned for pizza with some salt, fresh oregano, mozzarella cheese, and olive oil. Sometimes I add a ton of arugula on top too. What’s nice is that pizza is also kinda healthy actually.
Man y’all have clearly never eaten in Lyon…
I’m Dutch and I think this map is completely unfair. It overrates our food significantly
The Dutch chartered an enormous company to trade spices, but never used them.
That’s just common knowledge, dealers never dip into their own product.
This tracks, every Italian I’ve ever met has been a complete snob about food.
About “fattening”: yes, pasta is.
As someone who’s lived Italy, this does sound like something an Italian would say lmao
You’re absolutely right! Cooking is all about experience and experimentation. Just like how a sushi chef masters the art of raw fish preparation, you get more comfortable with different types of fish and techniques over time. The key is to try various recipes, observe the textures and flavors, and learn how different fish react to cooking. You’ll soon develop an intuition for how long to cook them, based on the thickness or fragility of the meat.
Your story with chicken resonates too! Everyone starts somewhere with a bit of hesitation, but as you practice, you build confidence. It’s all part of the learning process. Keep going, and you’ll find yourself navigating different ingredients with ease!
I confirm. Source: I’m Italian:):):)
How can you put Spain on the same level as Great Britain? Damn Italians don’t know how to make anything other than sauce with tomatoes and they think they know how to cook.
I went to Spain for a few months and honestly wasn’t too impressed with the cuisine.
Yes, I guess that is part of the problem, in Spain hoteliers prefer to scam tourists with products of inferior quality compared to what we really eat than to gain fame and repercussion. I don’t know if that was your case, or where you were, it varies a lot from one region to another, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
I didn’t see any reason to assume that the person you were replying to ate at hotels or at places the hotels recommended. I’m pretty sure it’s more common for tourists to eat at local restaurants.
Yeah i was in rota for work and there were some good restaurants but on the whole there was really nothing, like, outstanding… nothing memorable, or that I’d say I’d want to eat again. Took a weekend trip to Barcelona and they had some better restaurants, but honestly I felt the same.
Oi, we had a restaurant so good they had to stop it entering the world’s best restaurant competition because it kept winning.
Also Sunday roast is the food of kings.
What do you consider to be “roast dinner”?
poland in the fattening/caution zone is kind of on point actually
i fucking love polish food and feel that describes it pretty well X3
Wow this is the most triggering post I’ve seen in a while and that’s saying a lot in these times
Pre 1600s: Y’all a wanta some Rotting fish juice?
Eh, half the authentic East Asian food you get has Fish Sauce as an ingredient, which is essentially Rotting Fish Juice. Hell, Worcester Sauce in the West is similar but different.
Source: Unmilitant vegan that is peeved that fermented fish product ends up being the secret ingredient in many authentic dishes.
Fair point. Although a lot of South Asia also had shitloads of herbs and spices.
Italian cooking before tomatoes came to Europe looks quite depressing. (Probably still pretty tasty tho)
Don’t knock it 'til you’ve tried it.
Any Italian noodles with tomato sucks. Chinese noodles win 99.99% of the time
If you wanna be pedantic, Italian pasta is actually the knockoff of Chinese noodles.
Also, Greek food is fantastic!
If you really wanna be pedantic, almost everything is a knocknockoff of something
Yes, it is, and, yes, it is!
True comedy has no roots in ethnocentrism.
