Chef Claudio Melis from stylish restaurant La Cucina at Rosewood’s Al-Faisaliah Hotel is famous in Riyadh for his commitment to preserve the identity of Italian cuisine and gave Arab News his personal opinion concerning this subject.
“An interesting example of Americanized Italian food is the Italian-American hot salami known as ‘pepperoni.’ The word derives from ‘peperoni,’ the plural of ‘peperone,’ the Italian term to indicate bell peppers and a small, very hot pepper known as ‘peperoncino’ or ‘peperone picante,’” explained Melis.
“This kind of salami was invented in New York’s Little Italy by communities arriving from the south of Italy who created a dry version of their traditional Italian salami and misused the word ‘peperoni’ just for its easy association to the word ‘pepper,’” he added.
Incorporated into the American language with a slightly different pronunciation (“pepperoni” with two p’s in the middle), the word became thus an Italian-American expression to mean a variety of soft, smoky, bright red, dry and very hot salami made from pork, beef or poultry, originally descending from south Italy’s “salciccia” and “salame” and not from “peperoni” (bell peppers).
Although the term “pepperoni” and the American-style pizza pepperoni are very popular in many countries, they weren’t able to penetrate the Italian peninsula, as a pepperoni request will be immediately associated with bell peppers.
For this reason — unless you go to areas in Italy highly frequented by American tourists where restaurants most probably managed to include the “pepperoni pizza” in their menu — one should ask for a “pizza alla diavola” (pizza devil-style) or “pizza with salame” (but be careful to expressly ask to use beef) to get a “pepperoni pizza” instead of bell peppers pizza.
According to Melis, other examples of Americanized Italian dishes that are incorrectly considered very popular Italian specialties but are almost totally unknown in Italy are the Insalata Cesare (Caesar’s salad), Cioppino soup and pasta Alfredo.
The Caesar salad was conceived by Italian Chef Cesare who opened a restaurant in Tijuana at the borders between California and Mexico, but his dish never spread to Italy. The recipe is a mixture of Italian and American flavors and includes lettuce leaves and croutons dressed with coddled eggs, Italian olive oil, Parmesan, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, garlic and black pepper.
Today, restaurants top the Caesar salad with different kinds of dressings, including mustard, avocado, tomato, bacon bits, and even grilled chicken, steak or seafood.
The Cioppino fish soup is another famous Italian American dish originated in San Francisco at the end of the 19th century. It is an American version of “cacciucco livornese” that Italian expatriates from Genoa reinvented adding cream and shellfish.
Melis concluded that pasta Alfredo is a popular dish that is frequently requested by Saudis at Italian restaurants, but very few know the story behind its origin. This kind of pasta, invented at Alfredo di Lelio’s restaurant in Rome (1914), originally contained Parmesan cheese and a triple dose of butter, apparently added by the chef to please his pregnant wife and help her get back her appetite. Pasta with Parmesan cheese and butter was, and still is, a popular and simple recipe in Italy that existed long before Alfredo’s version. Today, apart from Parmesan cheese, pasta Alfredo is prepared by adding cream, a typically French ingredient that has nothing to do with traditional Italian cuisine.
