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.
Lobster fra diavolo was an early Italian American invention combining large American lobsters with southern style flavors. Shrimp is a low cost alternative.
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 […]
Italian meatballs were very different than American meatballs, and rarely served with spaghetti and red sauce.
Eggplant rollatini is one of the those classic Italian American red sauce dishes that persists today.
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.
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.
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.
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.
