tenspeed
Executive Chef
I recently picked up "Tasting Italy", the new book from National Geographic and America's Test Kitchen. Haven't read it yet, but thumbed through it. They point out that southern Italy has always been the poorest part of Italy, leading to more emigration than the north, so most Americans think of southern recipes when they think of Italian food.I was just sharing some insight on how a lot of traditional Italian cooking evolved into Italian-American cooking. Many of the changes came from early Italian immigrants who found themselves in a country where they found it necessary to adapt their cooking to what was available (and cheap) here.
If you are interested in reading about how Americans have modified some other countries cuisines, I would suggest reading "Ten Restaurants That Changed America" by Paul Freedman. It's an entertaining read, and will give you some insight into food history in the US. I'm pretty sure that's where I read where Texans turned wienerschnitzel into chicken fried steak!