Italian Food vs. Real Italian Food

I am amazed at what people in Cape Coral and Fort Myers may call Italian food. Aside from a couple of restaurants (Carrabas and maybe Maccaroni, for instance), here where I live, there’s not such a thing like Italian food. Whatever is called Italian is not even a pale replica of what one may eat in Italy.

In Italy, food is cooked in many different ways. There are many types of salami, cheeses, wines, meat, fishes, pizzas, and desserts. Just to give an example, in Italy, I never heard of spaghetti and meatballs. Italians don’t use to eat everything in only one plate. So they rarely, unless pasta alla Bolognese – with ground beef in tomato sauce – is at a play, eat pasta and meat all in once. Italians don’t eat salad as appetizer or in between appetizer and meal. They eat salad at the end of the meal or with the second dish (in this case it called contorno). They eat in this order (at least when they are in a restaurant):

1. Antipasto
2. Primo (usually pasta)
3. Secondo (usually meat – beef or pork, rarely chicken – or fish) + contorno (salad, potatoes, rarely it is mashed potatoes)
4. Frutta (frutta)

5. Dolce (any dessert, but I would easily pick a cannolo siciliano or a piece of crostata)
6. Caffe (espresso only)

Antipasto and secondo are usually eaten with bread. Sometimes pasta is eaten with bread too(soccer players do it all the time because they need many carbohydrates).

The Italian food I know in Florida is americanizzato. My family is “starved” because it cannot find good Italian food not even if it exchanges pure gold for Italian groceries! Vegetables and fruits, especially in southern Florida, have a different taste because of the climate. Sometimes, it has not taste at all.

Trust me, there’s not such a thing like Italian food around here!