I watched a program on Travel channel the other day that pitted New York-style pizza against Chicago-style pizza… so basically thin crust pizza vs deep dish pizza.  It was an entertaining program to watch and highlighted the history of pizza in the US.  Apparently the restaurant I took a photo of and posted on the last time I was in New York (Lombardi’s) is widely credited as being the first official pizzeria in the US.  I’ll have to give it a try next time I’m in the big City.

Here are a few comments and questions I had as I watched the program:

• New York Style = thin crust pizza… New York style?? you mean Italian Style.
• Ike Sewell opened the first deep dish, Chicago-style pizzeria called Uno’s and followed that with another pizzeria across the street called Due.  Sewell doesn’t sound like an Italian name, yet he called his place Uno’s? hmmm, why would he do that? (brand Italy.)
• Soon after Uno’s became popular in Chicago, two cab drivers opened a pizzeria (Gino’s East) neither one was named Gino and neither was Italian…. hmmm, why would they do that?

There are certainly plenty of pizzerias in the world and the guys over at Slice highlight over 21 regional styles here in the US.   What’s your favorite Pizzeria?? and why?

If you’ve read some of my past “Brand Italy” posts you know I like to rant about companies that try to be Italian without actually trying to be Italian.  There are a whole list of companies that introduce products using Italian food appeal and then label them Italian… the problem is, it’s not remotely Italian.  Dunkin Donuts recently introduced the “Chicken Parmesan Flatbread Sandwich.”  The description of the sandwich from their website is as follows:

“Get a taste of Italy with premium breaded chicken, melted provolone cheese and tangy marinara sauce.”

Really?  I’ve never had one (and it’s safe to say, I never will) but I highly doubt that anyone will “Get a taste of Italy” when they try one. {for the record, I’m not saying the product doesn’t taste good… it might and it’s probably a great product for DD}  What do you think?

Here’s a more realistic photo of a Chicken Parmesan Flatbread Sandwich compliments of the guys over at We Rate Stuff. (Click on the link for their unbiased review on the sandwich)

**To make matters worse (much worse) I heard a commercial for the Chicken Parm Flatbread Sandwich a few weeks ago.  The commercial revolved around an Italian American “tough guy” with an accent making threats to someone to try the sandwich.  I tried to find it online but couldn’t.  I haven’t heard it since but I’m hoping that the Ad Agency or Brand Manager at DD smartened up and pulled it.

How does the saying go?  The three most important things about real estate are: Location, Location, Location.  But what if that location is historic and beautiful, artistic and romantic?  Is it the right place for a big brand?  Take Piazza della Rotonda in Roma for instance (home to the Pantheon.) From a financial standpoint a place like this would seem like a no-brainer (high traffic, tourists, people ready to spend some$$.)  But do you really want to stand next to the Pantheon and see a McDonald’s?  It may generate lots of income for McDonald’s but I imagine it generates more than its share of resentment as well (me included.) Maybe if you’re a brand like McDonald’s you’ve probably generated so much resentment along the way that a little more just doesn’t matter?  but it should matter and in my opinion it’s culturally irresponsible.  All brands have a story and a brand message to support that story.  If you talk to any brand manager, they’ll tell you that anything that doesn’t jive with their brand message and story is something they won’t consider…and that makes sense.   Brands aren’t the only ones with a story or a message however… and McDonald’s just doesn’t jive with Piazza della Rotonda and the Pantheon’s brand story.

McDonald’s in Piazza della Rotonda, Roma (photo credit: A.Currell on flickr)

Maybe they should open a drive thru Starbucks for vespas IN the Pantheon!!  $$cha-ching$$!! Location, Location, Location!  Then again, the Dunkin Doughnuts that used to be in Piazza di Trevi (Trevi Fountain) has since closed (thank God)… maybe it’s not such a good idea.

The question is, what is Italian food?  I continuously see commercials for large chain restaurants that promote their pizza or pasta or panini or whatever “they think” Italian food is and how they have conquered it… finally!! The ones that irk me the most recently are from Pizza Hut.   One commercial shows how they go to Italy and serve unsuspecting Italians Lasagna and how they all rant and rave about how good it is and how similar it is to their mother’s recipe.  Really? Then the chef comes out and announces to everyone that he didn’t really cook the lasagna but it was actually from Pizza Hut and they give the delivery guys a standing ovation.  {If you know Italians at all, you know that NOTHING is as good as their mother’s food (unless it’s their grandmother’s.)}

A recent commercial shows a family that is blindfolded as they drive off to dinner but are actually brought back to their own house… walk up the same 10 steps to their front door but after tasting the pasta they think they’re at an Italian restaurant (if that’s true, they could be the dumbest family in America.)  Pizza Hut’s claim is “Restaurant Quality Pasta”… which goes to show that they don’t even consider themselves a restaurant (neither do I by the way.) In my opinion, restaurants should be shooting for “Home Quality Pasta.”

Let’s look at this from a marketing standpoint for a second…  In my opinion, Pizza Hut’s campaign revolves around the company’s ability to fool people.  So you go to Italy and fool Italians into eating your lasagna and go to New York to fool people into eating your pasta… you even go to someones house and fool them into thinking they’re somewhere else!  Why would you do that?  The obvious answer is to get people to try something that they would otherwise not try then create conclusions for your real target consumer.  I don’t believe Italians are a target consumer for Pizza Hut… but if their Pasta and Pizza is good enough for Italians then their target consumer will feel better about how authentic it is and buy it.  The contradictions are endless though.. authentically fooling people?  So this leads me to one of two conclusions:

1. Either they are incredibly naive (drinking from the company Kool-Aid) and think their Tuscani Pasta (which is what it’s called) is truly authentic Italian food or…
2. They have no intention of being authentic because that’s not what their target consumer wants.  If their target consumer wanted authentic Italian pasta then they wouldn’t be offering “Creamy Chicken Alfredo” or the ever popular and authentic Italian dish, “Premium Bacon Mac N’ Cheese” neither of which would be found a mile from an authentic Italian restaurant.

So why does this irk me?  To me as an Italian American, it’s insulting.  Food is a big part of our culture and not only do we as Italians and Italian Americans know this but the rest of the world knows it as well.  So if your plan is to capitalize on this fact (and many companies have) then try harder! otherwise don’t brand it as Italian.  There’s nothing wrong with creating a Pizza Hut line of pastas… great, maybe it even tastes good but once you call it “Tuscani Pasta” (which isn’t an Italian word that I know of but is meant to be in my opinion)  and then create a campaign on how Italians in Italy love it and people who eat it think they’re in an Italian restaurant, then it’s a different story.  If Pizza Hut really thinks they’re Tuscani line is authentic then maybe we should have a taste test… How about any of their Tuscani Pasta vs. my mother’s pasta.  We can get a whole restaurant full of Italians and see what they think.  I’ll even substitute my mother’s pasta for any Italian mother’s in the country.  Surely their “Restaurant Quality Pasta” is superior to Mom’s Pasta.  Or maybe they can open a Pizza Hut in Italy (surprisingly there are currently no Pizza Huts in Italy) and serve their pasta and Lasagna!  Their taste test obviously proved that Italians love it! What do you think Pizza Hut?  email me and we can make it happen.

So back to the question: What is Italian Food? Italian food to me is more than just ingredients… it’s an experience, it’s creativity, it’s simple and not overdone, it’s making the best out of what you have locally.  It’s creativity that created pizza when southern Italians had little and wanted to make something delicious with the little they had.  It’s not stuffed crust or extra cheese.

5 clues that your food is not authentic Italian

1. Your tractor trailer pulls up once a week and delivers pizza dough and other food made somewhere else that only needs to be cooked or warmed up at your restaurant.
2. Your menu is a never ending list of over-doing-it.  Super sized, stuffed crust, meat lovers supreme, butt buster specials that come in portions that could feed a large family… twice.
3. You need to try way too hard to get approval from Italians because they would never eat in your restaurant and/or have never heard of the dishes you’re claiming are Italian.
4. You use ingredients that can’t be pronounced in an effort to enhance taste and preserve “shelf-life”
5. Your recipes were developed in a laboratory by chefs with chemistry degrees.

So what is authentic Italian food to you?

Italian Extra Virgin Olive Oil is like “French Wine” or “Swiss Chocolate” or “German Cars”… Italy isn’t the largest producer of Olive Oil (Spain is) but Italian Extra Virgin Olive Oil is in its own class… not to take anything away from any other country as there is certainly high quality products elsewhere, possibly superior (let’s not get crazy) but we’re talking about marketing and image not facts.

In much of Italy, olive oil is produced from small family groves where they care for their own trees, pick their own olives and bring them to local mills to produce their oil.  Many families only produce enough olive oil for personal use but larger groves may also have additional oil to sell.

The small mills that are very common throughout the south (as I’m sure they are in other areas as well) press the olives for area farmers and in turn will take payment in cash or in oil.  Pretty straight forward right?

The mills that have accepted payment in oil now have a good amount of oil that they need to sell, so they call or are called upon by wholesalers.  The mills will watch the market price of oil and hold onto it if it is low, sell it if it is high (the market game.) Once they decide to sell, the wholesaler shows up with a truck, sucks up the oil and takes it away… simple right?  The problem is, there is only one “wholesaler” in our area of Calabria…. you would think there would be some competition wouldn’t you? NOPE.  Is it surprising? NOPE… but that’s another story.

This wholesaler is from another region of Italy, so after he sucks the “life” out of Calabria (or parts of it at least) he returns to his region where the company either sells it in bulk or bottles it or mixes it with seed oil or takes a bath in it… it doesn’t really matter at that point.  So the wonderful oil that is produced in Calabria and other areas of the south is taken away to other regions and sold as “their oil”… so in the eyes of the world, the best olive oil is made where? I would guess that most people would say Tuscany… not because the world has tasted Tuscany’s local oil (which is wonderful) but because the south, which is the leading producer of olive oil in Italy is supplying the company’s based in Tuscany with oil to sell to the world.  I would love to say that I’m upset that southern Italy isn’t getting recognized but to be honest I’d rather not have the world know because by the time they actually taste that bottle of olive oil it may be mixed with Spanish oil, Turkish oil, Greek oil, hazelnut oil or maybe even motor oil!

So the moral of the story is, no matter what region’s olive oil you prefer: buy local or buy from a small company that supports local farmers and you’ll taste a world of difference.

If you’re a regular reader of Italyville, you know that I’m passionate about true Italian brands and products.  One of those products is ITALIAN extra virgin olive oil.  I’m not talking about extra virgin olive oil that is brought into Italy from other countries to be mixed with Italian oil or simply bottled in Italy and labeled Italian.  I mean extra virgin olive oil made from olives grown in Italy, oil processed in Italy and oil bottled in Italy without being mixed with oil from other countries.  Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against extra virgin olive oil from Spain or Greece or California or any other place that produces a quality product… which they do.  However, my passion for Italian extra virgin olive oil runs deep and is rooted in my families livelihood in Calabria.  Like many southern Italian families, my family has a large olive plantation and my uncle owns an Oleificio (where they make oil.)  So they live or die by the success of the crop and the market price of olive oil.

Italian extra virgin olive oil like many Italian food products has appeal and is perceived as being of high quality (which is true in many cases.)  Unfortunately for that same reason, there are many products of lesser quality that have taken advantage of the reputation of Italian extra virgin olive oil and are profiting by using an Italian name, or purchasing cheaper oil from other countries that are mixed with Italian oil and bottling it in Italy.  The oil itself regardless of its origin may be of high quality but the fact is, it comes down to branding….. and labeling a bottle “Italian extra virgin olive oil” helps sell.  What does all this do?  Bringing oil into Italy from other countries increases supply and it drives the price of Italian olive oil down, which in turn affects local farmers.  Some Italian companies are among the culprits.  This article sheds a little more light on the situation. All this talk about olive oil leads me to this article that I read this week in our local newspaper regarding olive oil standards in the state of Connecticut. There are companies that are passing non-olive oil as extra virgin!! Apparently the state of Connecticut is the first state to pass quality standards for olive oil.

**If you’re in need of some high quality Italian extra virgin olive oil in Calabria or need an Oleificio to process your olives, visit my zio Mario.  He is one of the most genuine, honest people I have ever known and a regular comedian…. and that’s not just because he’s my uncle.

]]> http://italyville.com/2008/11/brand-italy-extra-virgin/feed/ 8 http://italyville.com/2008/09/delicately-priced-pasta/ http://italyville.com/2008/09/delicately-priced-pasta/#comments Tue, 16 Sep 2008 02:36:00 +0000 Joe http://italyville.wordpress.com/2008/09/16/delicately-priced-pasta/ I was at a local grocery store the other day that in my my opinion has been modeled after a Whole Foods…. basically it has lots of organic foods, high end products, etc. and I came across a display for “Benedetto Cavalieri” pasta (from Lecce.) It was in a real fancy package (that included a [...]]]>

I was at a local grocery store the other day that in my my opinion has been modeled after a Whole Foods…. basically it has lots of organic foods, high end products, etc. and I came across a display for “Benedetto Cavalieri” pasta (from Lecce.) It was in a real fancy package (that included a ribbon.) It looked good and since I am always one to try new pasta, I bought a pound of the Casarecci…. even though it was $7.99! I cooked it and it was good… not sure if was $7.99 good but I chalked it up to experience. De Cecco is still better:) I guess I got a deal since I just saw some online for $8.60.

Here are a few reasons I think they can justify the high price of this pasta:

1. They’ve been around since 1918…. if it’s an old company they can charge more.
2. Apparently they use the “Delicate Method” which is VERY expensive. It costs more to be delicate.
3. The Blue ribbon on the bag.
4. I hope you’re not taking me seriously.;)

UPDATE: Just to clarify: I certainly realize that Italians eat packaged foods and other “porcheria” like anyone else and that Italian companies make (in my opinion) junk (like Barilla sauce, which we also have here) My point is this: Regardless of what you name it or who makes it or where you may have learned it (Olive Garden) it doesn’t make it authentic. Barilla is an Italian company in every way…. but jarring ready to eat pasta sauce is not authentic Italian (profitable maybe but not authentic) Olive Garden may send it’s chefs to Tuscany to learn the secrets of Italian cooking but one glance at their menu and there’s nothing authentic about it. Bertolli’s sauce in a microwavable bag…. well, as Maria from Philly would say, “WTF is that??” So to any company who emails me or any other blogs to ask us to promote your products, I say this: Take a look around, what do we post about? How are we branding ourselves?

Original post:

For the second time this year, I’ve received an email from a company asking me if I would mention their product on Italyville and in exchange they would send me some of their product for free. I don’t have a problem with mentioning products or services that I use or am interested in or products that are authentically Italian…. but they have to fit in with brand Italyville.

So let me just list a few things that authentic Italians would NEVER DO.

1. We don’t buy ready to serve jarred tomato sauce regardless if it’s “Old World Style” or “the way Mama used to make” or “Nonna’s secret recipe” …. We’ve all thought of starting our own brand maybe but WE DON’T BUY IT.
2. We don’t understand how in the world ANYONE could think that a sauce like Prego or Ragu is good or how in the world anyone would eat it. Seriously.
3. Some of us may use microwaves to heat up leftovers or for popcorn but never as a primary cooking appliance. (My mother uses hers to store bread)
4. We don’t buy or eat frozen dinners. We plan life meal to meal… so why would we waste one on a frozen entree?
5. We’ve changed many of our friends’ habits and lives by having them over for dinner. I guess they just didn’t know what food was supposed to taste like ????
6. We often describe pre-packaged products as schifo or porcheria.

Traditional? Who’s tradition are they talking about?

In addition, I would like to add a few Italyville “Brand Italy” facts:

• Just because your company or brand was originally Italian, started by an Italian, has an Italian name and makes a product that you think is Italian…. doesn’t make it Italian.
• Chances are, if you’ve been bought by Unilever, CSC, Kraft, General Mills, etc….. you’ve probably lost some Italianess.

Here are a few examples of “sorry but your brand trying to be Italian isn’t working”

• Burger King’s Italian Chicken Parm Sandwich (really? stick to burgers BK)
• as mentioned above, Prego and Ragu (enough said)
• Bertolli’s microwavable sauce in a bag…. (what the? a double negative doesn’t make a positive in this case and believe me, there are no real Italian chefs getting upset at any of Bertolli’s products ANYWHERE.)
• Olive Garden (first of all, I don’t believe there is a cooking school in Tuscany that their employees go to…. and if there is, who’s running it? not a real Italian chef!!)

Those are just a few, I would love to hear about your favorite “Trying to be Italian” brands.