Talk:Italian cuisine/Catalogs

initial rant by Italian-Canadian food fascist fanatic purist :-)

The only dishes I know of that are found throughout most of the peninsula are minestrone, pasta fagioli, and potato gnocchi. All others are regional specialties. And then there are the abominations the Brits and Americans have done to it (or should I say Italian immigrants trying to make money by catering to the atrocious tastes of their clientele) such as soggy garlic bread served with pasta. There is no such thing as spaghetti bolognese in Italy (I can hear both my grandmothers -- one from Molise and the other from Modena -- turning in their grave): spaghetti are from Naples and bolognese is, well, from Bologna. Spag bog is one of the aforementioned British abominations. Ragù bolognese is served with tagliatelle verdi or in lasagne verdi!!!! And there are no leeks in it!!! :-) Luigi Zanasi 23:14, 30 July 2007 (CDT)

structure of article

What do we want to do with this article? Should it only be a list of dishes, we have also started adding ingredients & methods. Maybe we should divide into two, the first part having ingredients and methods (Bolognese sauce, parmigiano, pizza, spaghetti, risotto, polenta, prosciutto, etc.) and the second part has actual dishes (e.g. risotto ai funghi, spaghetti marinara, etc.)? Or should we

What are outr criteria for inclusion in this article: well known in Italy or in the rest of the world? Also, what do we want to include? Only dishes found in the Italian peninsula or do we include things such as garlic bread and spag bol which may be thought to be Italian dishes by potential readers?

Also, do we use Italian names (e.g. lasagne) or the common English variation (e.g.lasagna)?

Do we turn it into a table with colums for name(s), ingredients, region of origin, course (antipasto, first, second, dessert), notes (and possibly others)

What do we think would be most useful to eventual readers?

BTW, I have been unable to find a single Italian language web site that mentions "Spaghetti milanese". Most of them were from eastern Europe (Hungary, Austria, etc.). A light tomato & garlic sauce sounds like marinara to me.

Luigi Zanasi 11:35, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

All of the above are interesting and pertinent questions. I suggest that for the moment we leave the structure as it is and see how it develops. It may get a few more additions; it may get dozens more, some of them controversial or questionable; it may get some that *clearly* demand we restructure the whole thing. Seems to me that for the moment it is doing a adequate job. But you might check out Catalog of Chinese cuisine to see a different structure that someone has originated. That too seems satisfactory to me. Maybe it can be used here also. If so, it should be done *immediately*, so that all of the present entries can be redone. Otherwise, if this list gets longer, it is going to be a *lot* of work -- which I, for one, will beg out of, hehe.... Hayford Peirce 11:49, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

I have tried setting it up as a table similar to the Chinese one. Take a look at User:Luigi_Zanasi/Catalog_of_Italian_cuisine and let me know what you think. I will also notify Robert Tito since he started this article. Luigi Zanasi 13:20, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

Table version

That looks perfect to me. Frankly, I do NOT like this table format, but Larry does, and he has suggested pretty strongly a couple of times that lists I was making should be in table form (Famous tennis players, for instance), so the more tables the merrier, I guess.

It was I, by the way, who started this Italian catalog, not Robert. He *added* some stuff to my initial catalog. Cheers! Hayford Peirce 13:31, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

My apologies, Hayford, I should have scrolled all the way down the page history instead of assuming Robert had created it after seeing his many edits. Being an economist, I am somewhat prone to making unwarranted assumptions. :-) Luigi Zanasi 12:45, 4 August 2007 (CDT)

Hehe. No need to apologize! When you have a moment, could you please take a look at the "What to put into each national Catalog of cuisine" section of Talk:Catalog of Chinese cuisine. There are now at least a dozen of these Catalogs, with the Italian and Chinese ones particularly expanding rapidly. But there are important questions to be resolved, I think, before we go much further, and your thoughts on them would be very welcomed. Thanks! Hayford Peirce 12:56, 4 August 2007 (CDT)

Fabulous!  —Stephen Ewen (Talk) 14:45, 3 August 2007 (CDT)