Comments on: Brand Italy – Brands trying to be Italian

By: jennconspiracy

jennconspiracy — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 16:30:00 +0000

Joe, I think you’ve actually hit something that I have inherited culturally from both my Italian and English/Irish families — but which I find sorely lacking on a lot of vegan blogs.

Many vegans are incredibly reliant on packaged food — it’s pretty sad and I am constantly disgusted and dismayed at the “What’s in Your Refrigerator” feature in the back of Veg News… I guess I need to find more Italian vegan bloggers to read…

By: San-Man

San-Man — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 19:19:00 +0000

I agree about not eating sauce from a jar…Corn syrup/oil? Soybean oil? Hell, I don’t even put sugar in my ‘gravy’ (my father is from Mulberry St in NYC’s Little Italy and his parents were from Cracco, in the ankle of Italy)…I would probably starve to death before I ate sauce from a jar…The only possible time I might is if it only used olive oil and added no sugar or corn syrup…All that being said, lately there is something that is REALLY aggravating me to no end: It’s bad enough people only say Chicken (or veal) PARM now, it’s also being called Chicken Parmesan and not Parmagiana!!! If you’re making a (supposed) eyetalian dish, why would you use the french variation of the word??? Sigh…

By: Judith in Umbria

Judith in Umbria — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 08:18:00 +0000

I’m sorry I missed this when it was new. Olive Garden is a bugaboo of mine. I work sometimes as a personal chef to travelers and once I was asked for a menu that was straight out of Olive Garden. I have since recovered and I at the time asked them to please choose something Italian instead.
The bad news is that there are bottles, cans, fridged and frozen instant food here, too. At least the bags of frozen primi have no preservatives.
The restaurant thing in the US at least is troublesome. If you serve people Italian sized servings, they accuse you of cheating them. I can’t figure on a 4-5 ounce meat serving because US and UK clients find that laughable. I bend over backward to provide way too much pasta/risotto, etc., because the expectation is Falstaffian. Most feel underserved if they are not moaning afterward and looking at piles of leftovers. There have been times when I have feared clients were doing themselves harm.

By: girasoli

girasoli — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 09:03:00 +0000

I still can’t eat sauce from a jar (unless of course it is homemade and just stored in jars). I was very lucky that my mom made us homemade sauce every week – Wednesday, Prince Spaghetti day. I make my own sauce now. I do admit that I tried the jarred variety but it just ain’t as good. Now when it comes to other packaged products, yes, I buy them to save time but homemade sauce is sacred.

By: 'A Tuscan view.....from Umbria'

'A Tuscan view.....from Umbria' — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 11:28:00 +0000

Way to go Joe! I’m with you on all of this. You don’t have to be Italian to understand it you just need to love food.

This post and the comments made me LOL, I love a good debate, don’t you?:)Amanda

By: michelle of bleeding espresso

michelle of bleeding espresso — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:25:00 +0000

I was going to add something along the lines of what Lisa said; there are *tons* of prepared sauces and meals here in Italy and they seem to sell just fine. Many Italians are just like the rest of the world with microwaves and picking up a pizza to bring home instead of cooking. It’s not the Old World here anymore!

Also, my Italian-American grandmother was of the maccheroni and gravy school, and I used to tease her about it all the time. Now I just wish she were here, and I’d happily call it whatever she likes.

I’ve always believed, like you Joe, that “gravy” came from the logic of meat in the ragù. Since being here, though, my personal take has changed. In my part of Calabria, sauce (with or without meat) is often colloquially called “brodo,” which, in standard Italian, is actually broth. But here it’s used as a catch-all for anything in any way liquidy that goes on pasta. “Vuoi più brodo?” at my table means “Do you want more sauce?” and it can be anything from a seafood dish to a traditional ragù. Interestingly, it is also the word my OH uses whenever I make American-style gravy from chicken, turkey, etc.

Sooooo, my thinking is that in the New World, some Italian-Americans (from the south) may have adopted that catch-all word, brodo, for their sauce as well, and then only used one translation in English to express it: “gravy.”

Just a theory, but I was really taken aback when my OH called (American) gravy “brodo.” It was like a light bulb went off in my head

By: Proud Italian Cook

Proud Italian Cook — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 20:16:00 +0000

LOL!!! So true!

By: joe@italyville.com

joe@italyville.com — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:59:00 +0000

thanks for all the comments! I updated the post with a bit more clarification on the point I wanted to make.

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 15:26:00 +0000

Amen my friend… amen…

By: homebody at heart

homebody at heart — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 01:44:00 +0000

Oops, and I forgot to say that when we made homemade ravioli with the ex’s nonna, we called the sauce gravy, too. Later, his aunt called sauce, sugo but that had slow cooked meat in it. Both delice!