Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Ha. So true.  And as you said- Italian food is so regionalized.

Here is a great cookbook from Northern Italy where my grandparents were from.  Exquisite recipes- and like most authentic Italian food-quite simple.

The red meat sauce that I make is probably a couple hundred years old, very simple, and something I have yet to taste in any restaurant.

I'd choose Italian if I'm the one cooking, and French if a chef's doing all the dirty work.

I'd definitely choose French wine and cheese above all others.

Agreed. You have to search out the authentic stuff.

My point was that most people don't even know that what they call "Chinese" food is a completely made up Americanized version of Chinese food and not authentic at all.

Just as most people in this country think of the NY/NJ "Italian" food that has promulgated throughout the country as actually Italian, when it's a made up Americanized version of Italian food.

And tomatoes weren't even indigenous to Europe, they were brought back from South America by the Spanish, so the Italians can go jump in a lake if they think they own the only proper ways to use that particular food.

Now, if the Aztecs come along and tell me I'm doing it wrong, I might listen.

That's fair. It was obviously tailored to American tastes, which is why nearly everything in American Chinese food is covered in huge quantities of sweet sugary sauce.