Red Sauce How Italian Food Became American




Celebrate National Pizza Day With Great Pizza History

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Thursday, February 9th, 2023 | 261 views

A cheese pie from best pizza

February 9 is National pizza day. Don’t worry if you thought this was in October, which is National Pizza Month. Today is dedicated to pizzas of all sorts — so don’t confuse today with September 5, dedicated to National Cheese Pizza Day, September 20 for Pepperoni Pizza, and October 11 for Sausage pizza. Apparently, the nation loves pizza.

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Shrimp fra Diavolo

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Tuesday, August 30th, 2022 | 266 views

Shrimp Fra Diavolo with squid ink pasta -- tomato sauce and black pasta

Lobster fra diavolo was an early Italian American invention combining large American lobsters with southern style flavors. Shrimp is a low cost alternative.

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History Through Travel in Mark Rotella’s Memoir Stolen Figs

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Tuesday, August 23rd, 2022 | 248 views

Mark Rotella's Memoir Stolen Figs

Mark Rotella’s memoir is not entirely focused on food, but it does speak to the Italian American immigrant experience.

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Knickerbocker Hotel Spaghetti Alla Caruso

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Tuesday, August 16th, 2022 | 321 views

Italian opera singer Enrico Caruso helped make Italian food mainstream, so perhaps it is unsurprising a spaghetti dish was named in his honor. However, not everyone agrees what that dish should be. Caruso loved chicken liver, and he believed it was essential to help him sing opera. Most spaghetti alla caruso recipes are similar to […]

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Artusi’s Polpette

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Tuesday, August 9th, 2022 | 290 views

American Meatballs

Italian meatballs were very different than American meatballs, and rarely served with spaghetti and red sauce.

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Eggplant Rollatini: How To Make It

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Tuesday, August 2nd, 2022 | 302 views

baked eggplant rollatini

Eggplant rollatini is one of the those classic Italian American red sauce dishes that persists today.

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Lobster alla Diavolo

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Tuesday, July 26th, 2022 | 276 views

Ada Boni’s Il talismano della felicità collected Italian recipes from across the country when it was published in 1928. However, the English translation The Talisman Italian Cookbook often changed the content.

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Caruso Sauce in 1939

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Tuesday, July 19th, 2022 | 395 views

This spaghetti and red sauce is not spaghetti -- but rather its bucatini -- and its not Caruso sauce -- because who wants to eat sauce with liver in it

Chicken liver isn’t the most popular of meats these days, but for most of the 20th century it was the key component of a popular spaghetti dish.

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French Bread Pizza

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Tuesday, July 12th, 2022 | 342 views

french bread pizza made with old bread

French Bread Pizza is often associated with Stouffer’s, the frozen food giant that helped popularize lasagna. French Bread Pizza followed a few years later. Stouffer’s launched the product in 1974 with an eye toward pizza ovens, then an increasingly popular home appliance.

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Inventing English Muffin Pizza

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Tuesday, July 5th, 2022 | 546 views

Pizza took off across America during the 1950s. There were numerous contributing factors to the rise in the sudden popularity, but one that profoundly shaped every day cooking was the desire for more convenient foods.

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