5 Facts About "Italian" Food

5 things you should know foodwise.
When confronted with Italian culture, many people rely on stereotypes.
This is an attempt to destroy them.

1- Italians do not put meatballs on spaghetti: an average Italian meal is divided in two parts, primo piatto and secondo piatto; the primi include all the different pastas and risotti whereas the secondi category includes any meat and fish meals, complemented by a contorno, a side dish of vegetables.
So, spaghetti would be a primo and meatballs a secondo...two different dishes!

2- Alfredo sauce is an American thing: look for Alfredo sauce in any Italian grocery store and you would find none! It seems to me that it is more like a 4-cheese sauce, which you might very well find in Italy, but The Alfredo sauce sponsored by any Italian restaurants in America is not part of the Italian culinary tradition, sorry.

3-Italian wedding soup is not a traditional soup served at weddings.
Even if I am not sure about the true origins of this dish (Wikipedia takes it back to the Spanish tradition), I am very sure about the fact that I have never in my life encountered an "Italian wedding soup" until I came to the States.
Forget ordering this soup in Italy.

4- Starbucks, sadly, does not exist in Italy. Despite the fact that it is present in many other European countries, Italy's espresso tradition survives over any coffeeshop chain.

5- La dieta mediterranea is the traditional dietary tradition of the countries in the Mediterranean area. Not only it is rich in bread, pasta, potatoes etc., but it is also poor in red meat. Although Mc Donald's, Burger king and Wendy's already conquered the Italian soil, cheeseburgers%u2026not very popular in Italy.

Check out italianize yourself for more aticles on Italian cuisine, culture, and language.

6. It is understood by most that Italians are known for drinking wine during meals. In the north they also enjoy a delicious aperitivo (aperitif) called spritz before a meal. It is made with a sparkling wine and either Aperol, Campari or Select. Sometimes they enjoy shot of grappa after dinner to aid digestion. There is a link below that leads to a page that describes how to make Spritz.