Red Sauce: How Italian Food Became American Is Available Today
By Ian MacAllen
Monday, April 4th, 2022 | 2,389 views

Available now, Red Sauce: How Italian Food Became American is now available. Order online or at at your local bookstore.


Available now, Red Sauce: How Italian Food Became American is now available. Order online or at at your local bookstore.

An early version of Puttanesca Sauce, this salty marinara style sauce was introduced by Antonia Isola’s Simple Italian Cookery, one of the first Italian cooking books printed in English.

Neapolitan pizzas have always been small. These pizzas are typically about 10 to 12 inches in diameter. Traditionally these pies are served whole, although in modern restaurants, some Neapolitan-style pies are cut into 5 or 6-inch slices, intended to allow customers to share.

The Academia of the Italian Kitchen was established in 1953 as a gatekeeper for historic Italian recipes.

Dante’s of Bologna, a night club in the Italian city, served pasta with vodka sauce to late night partiers. Vodka was not common in Italy until the 1970s.
Ada Boni collected Italian domestic kitchen recipes, first publishing them in a cooking magazine, and then in a now famous cookbook, Il talismano della felicita — The Talisman of Happiness. The book collected regional recipes into one singular volume, a book that continues to be given away to brides on their wedding day, and that has increased in volume and spawned sequels and secondary collections.
Puttanesca sauce has often been suggested as a pasta prepared by prostitutes, although there is little truth to this particular legend.

The website YouGov released polling information from Italy and 16 other countries asking locals how acceptable or unacceptable various practices are surrounding Italian food consumption. Perhaps not surprisingly, the poll revealed many differences between Italian food traditions and those that are Italian-American.

Mama Leone’s was one of the earliest red sauce restaurants operating from a family living before moving into a 1,200 seat palace in Times Square.