If you wrote a blog about every aspect of being an American living in Italy, I would totally read it! I'm loving this thread! I never knew that the south of Italy was their Mexico.
Do tell more!
Also, Did Americans perfect the pizza, or is it better there?
It depends on what you call pizza. Of course, the garbage that is Papa John's, Dominoes, Pizza Hut, etc. is pure shit. Well, it's good when you're starving but it's shit.
You have to understand that in Italy, pizza isn't junk food like it is in the US. It's actually healthy for you and you can eat it every day without getting fat. What makes pizza so good in the US is usually all the shit they put on it, all the grease, fat, etc. If you like it that way, then you're going to prefer American pizza. Just make sure you don't eat too much of it or you'll get fat.
It all comes down to personal taste. Italian pizza is typically thin, with lots of toppings, and the ingredients are all natural. I don't know where most of these people who are saying American pizza owns Italian pizza are getting it from, when the only people on this board that I know of that's been anywhere in Italy are Max and Karen. Oh yeah, and the new guy with the hot chick in his signature. The north's pizza is good but it's much, much better in the south. If you've eaten pizza in Venice or something like that, I feel sorry for you. Venice is the worst place in Italy to eat, but tourists are so stupid that they'll never know the difference. Everything there is mediocre. It's like the scene in National Lampoon's European Vacation, where the French are microwaving dinners and serving them to the customers, and everyone's like, "Wow, it's amazing!!!" Yeah, Venice is about the same.
I've never eaten a better pizza in the US than in Italy, but then again, pizza in the US is different in different places. Another thing, pizza anywhere north of Rome is good, but nothing in comparison to Rome and south. It has nothing to do with how they cook it, it's more the climate and ingredients used. Again, it all comes down to personal taste. If you like thick crust, blech, then you probably won't like Italian pizza. There is no such thing as genuine Italian pizza in the US. However, like Karen said, there's a place near her home that cooks great pizza, even better than here. I'm sure it's true, but I'm sure Italians would disagree, mainly because they don't like heavy food like we do. Again, it comes down to personal taste. To get the same taste, you would have to import the sausage from here in Friuli or Trentino, the salame piccante (what Americans call pepperoni) from Calabria or Sicilia, the tomatoes from Emiglia-Romagna or Campania, the prosciutto from San Daniele here in Friuli, or the mozzarella from Campania in Naples to get the same taste, but it still would be different due to the climate and lack of freshness due to shipping. It's kinda like the difference between California wine and French or Italian wine. It's good in California, but a Cabernet Franc or Refosco from here would own anything California could ever produce.
But
again it all comes down to personal taste. I've eaten pizza all over the place here, and my absolute favorite pizza is this itty bitty pizza place here that serves pizza only once a week because they bring it around in a portable kiosk. I don't know why, but their ingredients are super fresh and the way they cook it makes me wanna slap my mama. Others from the south may disagree, but that's just my personal taste. Same thing with Americans and Italians thinking their pizza is better than the other. I have eaten bad pizza here, though. It's not that just because it's from Italy it's automatically good, because the pizza I had a few months ago was like eating rocks with sand on top. I don't know what happened, because the place used to be really good but now it's shit. I think one could argue that there are MORE pizza places in Italy which are better tasting than in the US, but not that every single one is automatically better because they happen to be in the Republic of Italy. In fact, one of my other favorite places to go around here is a pizza place owned and run by Albanians. They have a special kebab pizza that I absolutely love.
People can open up a pizza place in the US and cook it exactly like they do in Italy, but it would probably be different. I'm not gonna say better or worse because that would be dealing in absolutes, and this is something that comes down to personal taste. The Mediterranean climate and the ingredients here are the secret to making it taste so good. Again, it's not that Italians are master chefs, they just have an advantage with the ingredients.
Morganna, I'll just use this thread as a blog when anything stupid/interesting happens to me here in this fun but fucked up place.
Italians are very one-dimensional and closed-minded people; even more so than Americans...it gets pretty strange sometimes. It's just that the few things they do well, they do REALLY well.
