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?