10 Italian food that don’t exist in Italy

Italy is world famous for its cuisine. There is something about Italian culture that is deeply connected to food. From fresh pasta and pizza to incredible wine, the country has the perfect recipe for delicious food.

Nowadays, you can get Italian food everywhere in the world. However, did you notice that what you’re eating won’t actually be the real thing? Italians are often very strict about their food. What shape of pasta goes with a particular sauce, old style coffee in the moka and which herbs or other ingredients must or must not be added to certain dishes are considered matters of great importance.

As always happens with immigration, dishes change once they get to a different country. The food adapts to the tastes of the people that live there, and therefore the ingredients available.

So, many foods you’ll have thought were classic Italian dishes are, in fact, adaptations and are very hard to seek out in Italy itself.

Spaghetti with meatballs

The classic American perception of “spaghetti with meatballs” is really no traditional Italian dish. Most likely, Italian immigrants invented this staple dish in NY during the first 1900s.

“Polpette” is a really famous recipe dish in Italy. They adjust from town to town as far as ingredients, size and recipe are concerned.

In some parts of Southern Italy, polpettine – a smaller size of American meatballs – are a typical addition in the sauce, but never combined with spaghetti. You can find the dish in many restaurants menu as “pasta al forno“.

Caesar salad

Most people assume Julius Caesar or the Caesar family who ruled Rome was the namesake of the Caesar salad. In fact, a man named Caesar Cardini, an Italian-American restaurant and hotel owner, invented the Caesar salad in Tijuana, Mexico.

Legend has it that Cardini was low on food, expecting a busy 4th of July weekend and had to come up with something quick to serve the expected rush of diners. As a result, he grabbed whatever ingredients he had on hand and improvised a table salad.

The original recipe included romaine lettuce, garlic, croutons, Parmesan cheese, boiled eggs, olive oil and Worcestershire sauce.

Chicken (or veal) Parmigiana

Nope, not Italian. Chicken Parmigiana with breaded chicken cutlets, marinara sauce, parmesan and melted mozzarella cheese may be a classic Italian-American food.

What is Italian, or at least it was born in Southern Italy, is “melanzane alla parmigiana“. Eggplants fried and layered with tomato sauce, mozzarella, and parmesan, then baked. This is the recipe in a nutshell.

Penne alla Vodka

You’ll be hard-pressed to seek out cream sauces far south of Milan, including in Rome. So if you’re trying to find a dish like penne alla vodka — which incorporates a creamy sauce — at a Roman trattoria, you’re already off-base.

But add vodka on top of that, and quite a few Italians will think you’re frankly off your head (unless, that is, they’re conscious of the American dish).

Instead try: a simple pasta al pomodoro — it’s basically all the good bits of penne alla vodka, minus the cream and vodka.

Want to pay it a little more of an homage? Finish it up with a grappa after your meal (particularly when in the North of Italy). It’s a popular – and very strong – clear digestivo.

Garlic Bread

The whole idea of smothering bread in either olive oil with lots of garlic was invented in the USA in the early 1940s.

Instead try: bruschetta al pomodoro. Toast the bread, rub a little bit of garlic (but not nearly what you see with garlic bread!) and add some extra virgin olive oil. Perfetto!

Fettuccine Alfredo

Oh Fettucine Alfredo! Arguably one of the most famous Italian dishes in America. There’s a lot of misconception about this dish.

According to the popular myth, a man named Alfredo crated the famous Fettuccine Alfredo. He was the owner of a touristy restaurant in Rome back in the 1920’s.

At the time he had a pregnant wife. She suffered severely from nausea. For this reason she couldn’t keep anything down. So, in a desperate attempt to help her, Alfredo ran to the kitchen and began to create a dish she could not resist.

He mixed parmesan and butter and poured it over fettuccine. Hence, Fettuccine Alfredo was born.

In other words, the myth is just a fun tourist tale. There is not really any credibility to the story. It’s presumably that Alfredo’s wife was eating pasta in bianco, a dish of plain pasta usually given to someone who is feeling sick.

Rainbow Cookies

These beautiful cookies have various names. The most common ones are Tricolor Cookies or Seven Layer Cakes, can be very easily found in Little Italy.

You will mostly see them in occasions like the Feast of San Gennaro, not in Italy. Italian immigrants invented them in New York and they designed them to invoke the flag of their motherland.

Pepperoni pizza

Ordering a pepperoni pizza in Italy won’t yield an equivalent result it’ll in America. In contrast, in Italian, what Americans call “pepperoni” is referred to as salami.

If you travel to a city where there are typically many tourists, you’ll find some restaurants who will actually offer you “pepperoni” on your pizza simply because this is a common mistake made by American tourists. Otherwise, if you’re lucky, they may ask you for clarification.

Be aware though. If you order “pepperoni pizza” in Italy, don’t be surprised if your pizza comes out with some delicious red and yellow bell peppers!

Italian dressing

In Italy, people don’t use Italian dressing. To tell you the truth Italians don’t even know the concept of a premixed dressing that you can buy in a store.

Normally you dress salad with olive oil, vinegar or lemon juice, salt, and sometimes balsamic vinegar at the table.

Marinara sauce

Pasta alla marinara (“mariner style” pasta) does exist in Italy, but it’s usually shellfish, oregano or olives – sometimes both in the sauce. Italians tend to use less sauce in order to bring more balance to the dish.

On the opposite hand, within the US, the term “marinara” refers to the straightforward tomato-based “red” sauce that’s ubiquitous in Italian-American cooking, slathered on everything from pasta to meat.

In conclusion, these are the ten Italian foods that shock people the most when they realise they don’t actually exist in Italy. Tell me about you guys! Did I forget some more Italian food? If you live in a country like the USA, Brazil or Australia where there are a lot of Italian immigrants, are there any new Italian food I don’t know about?