If you go to Italy, you won't find a dish called spaghetti and meatballs. If there is, it is probably to satisfy the tastes of American tourists. If not Italy, where did this dish come from? Meatballs generally have many creative stories all over the world, from kóttbullars in Sweden to various kóftes in Turkey. Yes, there is a kind of Italian meatball called Boer Petes, but it is quite different from American meatballs. They are mainly eaten as a meal (ordinary) or soup, and are made of meat such as turkey and fish. Usually, they are no bigger than golf balls; In abruzzo, they are no bigger than marble and are called polpettines.
Polpetes usually appear on the family table, not on the restaurant menu, and are very popular in Italian family cooking. Pellegrino Artusi was a silk merchant in Florence. After retirement, he was keen on food, travel and recording recipes. 189 1 year, he published the first modern Italian cooking book, La Scientiza in cucina e l 'arte di Mangiarbane, and won the unofficial title of "Father of Italian Cooking". Various Italian local cuisines blend together. In Polpater's works, he wrote, "An uncultivated Cheo Abiya Laplester Innervi far from Polpater. Don't think I'm so pretentious as to teach you how to make meatballs. This is a dish that everyone can cook, starting with donkeys. " Needless to say, meatballs are considered to be a very easy dish to cook, but they are still very popular. "
Pork can be made from all kinds of meat. The picture shows tripe. (Image courtesy of Emiko Davies/CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) But those big meatballs poured on spaghetti are 100% American. So how did spaghetti and meatballs evolve from Boer pie? The answer is similar to every national dish that comes to this country; Immigrants must use raw materials that they can find and afford.
From 1880 to 1920, about 4 million Italians immigrated to the United States. Most people (about 85%) come from southern Italy, where the political and economic environment makes the region extremely poor, so Sicilian cuisine, Calabria cuisine and Campania cuisine are all Italian specialties, and abruzzi and Moliis (not Venice) will become their symbols in the United States.
These poor immigrants spend 75% of their income on Italian food, while only 25% on American food. More money brings more food. Like Irish beef and corned beef, meat has become a staple food, not a rare luxury (if any). The whole dynamic of food has completely changed. Therefore, the dynamics of the family, especially the role of women, have undergone great changes. Women go from scraping food to trying to be the best cook in the neighborhood. This is no longer necessary, but Laura did the best.
Although these immigrants eat more meat than ever, they don't buy filet mignon. Comfortable meatballs are the perfect solution to beef quality. With the increase of income, not only the consumption of meat increases, but also the quantity increases greatly. Immigrants are addicted to it. Meatballs have changed from golf to baseball. They use much more meat and less bread. Whether you can taste it or not, meatballs are usually made of bread crumbs, which are usually crumpled and soaked in milk to make them wet and soft. In traditional Boer Pit dogs, the proportion of bread and meat is equal, but the American version of Italian meatballs is a denser sphere.
After the Italian mother and son arrived in Alice Island. (Image courtesy of Preus Museum) With meatballs, you must have some sauce and pasta. Seeing the menu of Italian restaurants in the United States, a large part of the dishes are likely to be red sauce; Italian macaroni, stuffed shells, roasted seaweed, chicken parmesan cheese, eggplant parmesan cheese and so on. This marina sauce originated in Naples, from the Italian word marinaro, which means sailor. John Mariani explained how this sauce was named and how Italian cuisine conquered the world. "There is a simple garlic, oil and tomatoes called Marina. It is said that the sailor's wife made it quickly when she found her husband returning to a distant fishing boat. "
This kind of "sailor sauce" is used by American home cooks and dominates Italian and American dishes, because canned tomatoes (and pasta) are the only commodities in groceries.
Spaghetti was first paired with meat in Italian restaurants in the United States. (Photo by Karen Bowie) Spaghetti leading to the last part of the Trinity. Although many people think that Kyle Poirot introduced Italy to spaghetti, Italians have been eating spaghetti for a long time. The most accepted theory is that * * * invaded Sicily in the 8th century. But since the birth of pasta, it has been regarded as an appetizer, not a main course or a side dish. In fact, it was American influence that invented the new role of spaghetti in dinner. There are two theories that can explain how spaghetti jumped into the second Biato. First, British and American diners are used to adding starch, namely potatoes, to protein. In order to meet the requirements of customers, these early Italian restaurants combined meat dishes with pasta. The second theory holds that spaghetti, as one of the only Italian ingredients in the United States, is becoming more and more popular in the homes of new immigrants, who are adapting to the new food wealth.
Finally, look at the works of Nicorod Quatrosi Ochi, the owner of 1950 Sicily restaurant, which is very instructive, as quoted in Mariani's book:
Niccolóde quattrochiocchi said in his memoirs that he once ate in an Italian restaurant. There, I was introduced to two very good traditional American dishes, called' spaghetti with meatballs' and' Italian food'. He thought these two dishes were "just for fun, called Italian food", but he added: "In fact, I feel very satisfied. I think there should be someone in Italy.
Therefore, spaghetti and meatballs may not be Italian dishes, but they are symbols of Italian-American dishes. This lady and tramp may tell you that Americans like Walter Disney.