Podcast: On Italian-American Cuisine and its General Awesomeness

 Hi all,

OK, so today we go deep into Italian-American cuisine.  

This conversation kinda started with Jesse's review of John Mariani's fun (if flawed) book on Italian-American cuisine.  Check it out, it's worth a look, and some of the dishes we tried came out really nice.

Then, alert reader Dina DiMaio sent us a copy of her book Authentic Italian, which is a ~175pp. treatise on Italian diaspora cuisine in the States.  Jesse's starting to read it, and we are going to have another talk about Italian-American cuisine and culture when he's done, but we decided to have a preliminary discussion on the topic, just to get our minds in gear.

Plus, we LOVE Italian-American cuisine.  It's one of the great American 'foreign' cuisines, up there with Tex Mex, strip mall sushi, and my beloved crappy Chinese food.  (Note, we are not saying Chinese food is crappy, we're saying crappy Chinese food is an entirely separate cuisine.  We love the real stuff, but man, we love the fake stuff too.  If you're not sure which type of Chinese restaurant you're in, it's probably crappy.  If they serve french fries, that's a sure indicator.  Try the rib tips.)

Time Stamps:

1:28 The Case of TK’s Lawn Furniture

3:48 Yes, smartass, Jesse meant to say ‘emasculated,’ not ‘emaciated’

4:23 The Case of Jesse’s Wife and the Mystery Photos

10:24 The Guys Get On Topic (Italian American Cuisine, Sausage, Candied Seeds, We Really Get All Over the Place)

22:42  Dishes That Typify Italian American Cuisine

28:30  Garlic and its Use in Italian Cuisine v. Italian American

38:28 Nate’s Great-Grandmother’s Tomato Issue

46:48 Crimes on Cuisine Perpetrated in the Name of Italian American Cuisine

1:05:45 On The Big Night

Link: We discussed the excellent film The Big Night.  It's one of the best food films ever.  Prime members, follow the link, and you can stream it for like $7.  It's just the best.