Thinking about Italian Heritage Month, family recipes, favorite restaurants, and holiday, cooking traditions come to mind. But when you look beyond the spaghetti and meatballs and mozzarella brands, some Italian and Italian-American used their creativity to fill cupboards, kitchens, and more with food products that have become so ubiquitous, many of us never associated them with Italian heritage.
We reached out to Bill Dal Cerro, from the Italic Institute of America, a New York-based educational group, to learn more about Italian heritage and food in the US. And while his bread and butter is not Italian food history per se, he is always looking for an antidote to break down stereotypes of Italian and Italian-Americans in popular American culture. What better way than through examples of food?
Here are Bill Dal Cerro’s historic explorations:
“In a country like America, which reveres the entrepreneurial spirit, it's fascinating that three of the most iconic foodstuff-related businesses in our nation's history were founded by Italians: Planters Peanuts (Amedeo Obici in 1906), Tropicana Orange Juice (Anthony Rossi in 1947) and Chun King Chinese Food (Jeno Paolucci in 1947, who added a bit of "Italian spice" to the food).
Many Italian women were also entrepreneurs. Frozen pizzas are common in today's grocery stores, but it was Celeste Lizio, a pizza-maker from Chicago, who pioneered the concept in the early 1960s. Working with the Quaker Oats Company, her "Mamma Celeste" pizzas became a household name.
(via Pinterest)
The concept of submarine sandwiches was taken from neighborhood Italian delis and made mainstream by Fred DeLuca, who created the Subway chain stores in 1968. McDonald's became even more popular as a fast-food empire with its iconic Big Mac hamburger, created in 1968 by one of its franchisees, Jim Delligatti. As for desserts, Italo Marcioni added a new way of enjoying ice cream by inventing the ice cream cone in 1904.
Regarding Italian restaurants, none is more famous than the Musso and Frank Grill in Los Angeles, the eponymous Hollywood eatery established in 1927 by John Mosso and Frank Carissimi. And on the East Coast, there is Sardi's, established by Vincent Sardi Sr. in the same year, with its famous cartoons of celebrities on the wall [and now considered the birthplace of the “Tony Awards.”] How ironic that the Hollywood film industry, which has been fed by these two restaurants for nearly 100 years, shows zero gratitude by still caricaturing Italians in the movies!
Sardi's (via Facebook)
After eating all of these foods, one can always work off the extra pounds at a local health club. And who created the concept of modern fitness? It was Charles Atlas, the "skinny boy on the beach" who transformed himself into a popular American icon of strength. He was born Angelo Siciliano.
Charles Atlas adv (via Wikipedia)
And it was a contemporary of Atlas's, Vic Tanny (born Iannidinardo), who pioneered the concept of modern health clubs, encouraging annual memberships and promoting them to everyone, not just hard-core bodybuilders.
Finally, one has to note the August 27th, 2020 passing of Anthony Martignetti who, as a young boy in 1969, was seen running through the streets of Boston's North End after hearing his mother cry out for him through a window: "Anth-o-nee!!" Martignetti, a native of that famous Italian neighborhood, was chosen by advertisers to star in a TV commercial promoting Prince Spaghetti. Some say that famous ad finally transformed Italian food from being "foreign" to "American."
Princ Spaghetti tv commercial (frame)
Let's lift a glass of Italian wine to salute all of the food facts above! Cin cin!” - Bill Dal Cerro