Italian American Food

Among the six largest ethnic groups in modern America, Italian Americans were the last to arrive in substantial numbers, had the most difficult transition from rural to urban life, faced a great deal of discrimination as immigrants, retained the most of their traditional foodways, and have the most popular ethnic cuisine by every measure: restaurant meals, supermarket sales, published cookbooks, and recipes in contributed cookbooks. Contemporary American youth of all backgrounds love pasta and pizza; the most refined gourmets seek out exotic Italian regional specialties like ventresca tuna, farro, and fennel pollen. Americans have embraced Italian food to the extent that many other ethnic cuisines are described in Italian culinary terms: Jewish delicatessens sell kosher salami, Chinese potstickers are called “Peking ravioli,” and Greek and Korean restaurants feature fried calamari.