Just about everyone loves Italian food, in at least one of the many guises that it’s found throughout America. It might be spaghetti and meatballs, a fresh-tasting Caprese salad or something thickly covered in Alfredo sauce, a more currently fashionable Roman pasta preparation like cacio e pepe, pizzas, or creations expressing contemporary Italy as artful or innovative as any from a French kitchen. I’ve long been curious about what the dishes are that help to define Italian dining here. So, I recently went through the menus of what I hoped was a representative sample of Italian restaurants throughout the country to understand the most commonly found foods. These are the dishes that help draw customers out to an Italian restaurant. I cataloged items from over 50 current menus, which followed on nearly 200 from the previous few years.
Number twenty among the most popular items on Italian menus today is one that has been seen at restaurants for many decades, Eggplant Parmesan. This is fried slices of eggplant combined with a tomato sauce, mozzarella, grated Parmigiano – or more cheaply with Parmesan – and then baked. Still often made in many Italian-American households, this is a dish found throughout much of southern Italy, melanzane alla Parmigiana. The only connection to Parma is the Parmigiano grated on top. Referred to simply as parmigiana in Sicily where it is a much-loved staple – and where I just spent nearly two weeks – the preparation found on most Italian restaurants in America is much more often from the Neapolitan tradition, which has long influenced Italian restaurants here.
Eggplant Parmesan would have offspring in America. Meat was more easily available for the immigrants in the last century, and desired by customers at Italian restaurants in America. So the eggplant Parmesan treatment was naturally extended to slices of veal and then pieces of chicken. Veal Parmesan was seen on menus by the 1930s. The chicken version in the 1950s. Each of these three Parmesans would become longtime Italian-American restaurant favorites.
Eggplant Parmesan remains popular. It is lighter and seems to many, seems, healthier than those meat-laden dishes while still offering the classic flavors from the pairing of tomato sauce and melted mozzarella. And, not incidentally, its vegetable-heavy ingredients provide some heftier margins for restaurants.
An eggplant Parmesan - St. Pete's Foodies
Number twenty among the most popular items on Italian menus today is one that has been seen at restaurants for many decades, Eggplant Parmesan. This is fried slices of eggplant combined with a tomato sauce, mozzarella, grated Parmigiano – or more cheaply with Parmesan – and then baked. Still often made in many Italian-American households, this is a dish found throughout much of southern Italy, melanzane alla Parmigiana. The only connection to Parma is the Parmigiano grated on top. Referred to simply as parmigiana in Sicily where it is a much-loved staple – and where I just spent nearly two weeks – the preparation found on most Italian restaurants in America is much more often from the Neapolitan tradition, which has long influenced Italian restaurants here.
Eggplant Parmesan would have offspring in America. Meat was more easily available for the immigrants in the last century, and desired by customers at Italian restaurants in America. So the eggplant Parmesan treatment was naturally extended to slices of veal and then pieces of chicken. Veal Parmesan was seen on menus by the 1930s. The chicken version in the 1950s. Each of these three Parmesans would become longtime Italian-American restaurant favorites.
Eggplant Parmesan remains popular. It is lighter and seems to many, seems, healthier than those meat-laden dishes while still offering the classic flavors from the pairing of tomato sauce and melted mozzarella. And, not incidentally, its vegetable-heavy ingredients provide some heftier margins for restaurants.
An eggplant Parmesan - St. Pete's Foodies
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