"Victor Sack" > ha scritto nel messaggio
.. .
> Janet Baraclough > wrote:
>
>> Syllabub and cheesecake are such common foods in Europe, would Italians
>> interpret them as a "taste of American cooking"?
>
> Italians generally know quite a bit about their country's - and
> particularly their region's - cuisine. It is my impression that they
> generally do not know much more about cooking in other European
> countries than they they do about American cooking, though.


Got that right. Stereotypes are promulgated even on cooking shows. French
food is always oversauced, British food is bland and heavy, German the same
and always includes wurstel, etc.

>> Giusi is aiming to give her guests something uniquely American.
>
> I do not think she does. It would be generally pointless, anyway. >
> Victor

I think what I've mentally done is decide on a period, probably the Fifties,
and tried to come up with dishes that were already good then, rather than
dishes from the ethnic and cookery explosion that has happened since 1960s
and Julia Child. That's the period in which Italy fell in love with
America. Never blown away with US food, they now believe that we eat
nothing but hotdogs, hamburgers, bad pizza and bad spaghetti or lasagna.
They think that we drink hard liquor all the time and only drink wine when
we come here. (They also think Tabasco is Mexican.) Many Italians are very
suspicious of foreign foods, but when they eat the things I have made, like
apple pie, lemon meringue pie, apple crisp, peach cobbler, chili and US
potato salad, the general reaction is "Who knew?" Some other things have
been more "Who cares?"
--
http://www.judithgreenwood.com