Gardening Methods

Why don’t people consider Olive Garden “real” italian food?

I live in Texas so maybe I don’t know to much about italian, but i’m telling you Olive Garden’s setting makes me feel like i’m sitting in a vineyard in Italy, enjoying fine dishes from native italian mother’s kitchens? Why do people snicker when i say Olive Garden has great italian food?

Hannitized, it’s cool if you enjoy Olive Garden. But the feedback is accurate: it is a franchise and it serves a sort of “pseudo” Italian food suited to American tastes. It is bland and deliberately calibrated for those who don’t really know Italian cuisine and have timid palates. The enormous portions are an embarrassment: they are “gross” in the literal sense of the word.

I’ve eaten in Rome, Florence, Venice, etc., and I can assure you that the respective menus have very little in common beyond the use of pasta and sauces. When Olive Garden starts serving pasta dressed with cuttlefish ink, I’ll cut it a little more slack.

If I were you, I’d seek out Italian restaurants that are authentic. You usually have to be in pretty cosmopolitan places to find them. Two words to look out for: “Ristorante” (Restaurant) and “Trattoria” (similar, less formal). A good Italian restaurant probably will not have the word “Pizza” advertised.

Italians gasp when they hear Americans have spaghetti with sauce for dinner. It is an appetizer in Italy. Similarly with Pizza. In it Italy, it is more of a light snack and rarely a full meal, unless you’re on a budget, etc. Italian pizzas are more austere. You probably won’t find one of those Pizza Hut monstrosities with shovel fulls of toppings like we have in the States anywhere in Italy-that’s an American thing.

It’s worth it to check out the real thing.

Wildflower Center garden tour: Central Texas Gardener