10 lies about Italian cuisine abroad that are hard to deny
Among the most abused kitchens in the world, those that are believed to know but which in reality do not know anything, Italian cuisine is the master with the Chinese.Abroad our kitchen is sadly shrouded in mystery, often impoverished and trivialized by a series of common places at times embarrassing. They do not help our restaurateurs in a foreign land, which over the years have done very little to tell a proper gastronomic tradition, more often ready to chase the business rather than give a real idea of what we are and what we eat. We have already read many of the fatal misunderstandings between our kitchen and how it is perceived, and the following is our top 10 most ridiculous lies.
1.The cappuccino is accompanied by the main meal : the average foreigner sips cappuccino with a lot of bitter cocoa on the surface seated comfortably while he savored his fabulous spaghetti out of a tin , precooked, in an armchair. For foreigners all Italians drink cappuccino before, during and after the meal and when they realize the opposite they do not consider strange themselves but the Italians.
2.The salad should be eaten with pasta : pasta abroad is asked only and exclusively accompanied by salad . Foreigners are convinced that in Italy you eat this way and that, above all, salad is the best method to eliminate the heaviness of pasta. Everything that is carbohydrate is considered to be eaten only if accompanied by salad, including pizza.
3.Risotto is an appetizer : at dinner of a foreigner it is not uncommon to find, as an appetizer, a plate of risotto usually with mushrooms. A commonplace abroad is that risotto is an appetizer that necessarily follows a main course , consisting of meat and various vegetables.
Chicken carbonara is an Italian specialty : of American tradition, this non-existent Italian pasta is passed off (even in Italian restaurants abroad, attention) as a specialty of our country's cuisine. Usually seasoned with plenty of cream, plenty of Parmesan, boiled or grilled chicken, pepper and even peas, it is also one of the dishes that foreigners, if asked in their countries of origin, prefer more.
Chicken parmigiana: it is once again something that in Italy does not exist but that, it seems, abroad are convinced is one of the national dishes. It consists of a fried schnitzel and drenched literally in tomato sauce and then placed on a plate of pasta and covered with parmesan or grated cheese. Served mainly in restaurants and in restaurants that try to replicate, poorly, the cuisine of our country and, alas, they can also make success and money.
The fettuccine Alfredo are typical and traditional : invented in Rome by Alfredo Di Lelio, only in theory they are Italian but here we know each other as butter and Parmesan and certainly have not taken hold in restaurants in our country. Abroad they go the most, are decanted as a typical dish of Italian gastronomy and, possibly, also a symbol of our way of eating.
The pepperoni pizza is the most famous pizza in Italy : the great mystery of Italian cuisine abroad is this pizza with a strange name, the pepperoni pizza, which for Italians is like something like a pizza with peppers while for the English-speaking ones it's pizza with salami. Maximum confusion when one discovers, at the restaurant, that in Italy pepperoni pizza is not salami pizza, desolate and desolate faces.
The pasta is difficult to cook : although it is excellent pasta almost everywhere now, there are always many foreigners who do not know how to prepare it and, if you do not throw on the precooked, end up seasoning directly in the cooking water, the (s) ) cook in a little water or leave it raw because they have taken Gordon Ramsay and his pasta al dente to the letter.
The pizzas with pineapple or meat are a refinement: foreigners think that in Italy you really eat pizza with pineapple and ham or meat ( meatballs , chicken, etc.) on it and if you realize that it is a tradition that does not exist, they do not care too much, continuing to believe in the goodness and delight of these pizzas with ingredients of all kinds.
The carbonara pasta is made with cream or crème fraiche : Not only does the foreigner not know that in Italy the creme fraiche is a mythological product but even the foreigner believes that the real carbonara if it is not made with liquid and fat cheeses it is not authentic. In many cases proving the opposite is not enough because the carbonara, for foreigners, is only the one with cream or crème fraiche and the authentic version is, not necessarily in this order, dry or too liquid, without flavor or too tasty for via della pancetta.
