No coffee with dessert? No butter on your bread? No spaghetti and meatballs?? You've probably been making these pasta faux pas your whole life.
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00:00No coffee with dessert? No butter on your bread? No spaghetti and meatballs?
00:05You've probably been making these pasta faux pas your whole life.
00:09Don't head to an Italian restaurant if you're short on time or cash,
00:13at least not if you want to have a proper Italian meal. No Italian dinner is a one-course affair,
00:18so say goodbye to your cheap dates and quick bites. It's time to settle in for a few hours
00:22of considerable conversation and countless dishes. Okay, maybe not countless, but at least several,
00:27and if you want to do it the authentic Italian way, Cucina Toscana says you should be prepared
00:32for nine. Some of those courses are liquid, but you should still plan to pack away more
00:36than a single plate of deliciousness.
00:39For me, a buffalo mozzarella followed by a stringosi puranesca with a side of risotto
00:44parmigiano."
00:45Cucina Toscana reports that a true Italian starts with one drink and ends with two drinks,
00:50with a whopping six food courses in between. While this certainly may be more than you're
00:54used to, it's not quite as gluttonous as it sounds. Unlike many other national cuisines,
00:58Italian meals rarely combine foods in a single course, so the salad will come as its own course,
01:03fruit and cheese will come as a separate course, and so on. The only exception here is that sides,
01:08typically vegetables, will generally accompany the second food plate,
01:11which is usually the meat or seafood course.
01:14If your general knowledge of Italian cuisine consists primarily of pasta,
01:18chicken parm, and maybe a couple of soups and desserts, it's safe to assume you've
01:22encountered garlic bread at plenty an Italian meal. After all, what's not to love about warm
01:27bread slathered in butter and dressed in garlic and herbs? Well, here's the bad news for anyone
01:32serving this alongside pasta on an Italian night at home — it's not Italian. Garlic may be a
01:37hallmark of Italian cuisine, and there's certainly bread served at many Italian meals. But restaurants
01:42in Italy are beyond unlikely to serve garlic bread with any meal. This is because, for the
01:46most part, it doesn't exist there. Sure, bruschetta is a common antipasto in Italy,
01:51and the small pieces of bread may be topped with garlic, among other ingredients,
01:54but this is the closest you'll get to American garlic bread in Italy.
01:58As The Washington Post reports, garlic bread is an American invention made with
02:01Italian ingredients, not an Italian food you should expect to find anywhere in Italy.
02:07While we're on the subject of bread, let's talk about Bredekid. Your parents may have
02:11chided you not to fill up on the bread rolls served at restaurants before eating your meal,
02:15and they were right. But appetite isn't the real reason you shouldn't be downing the dough
02:19immediately at an Italian restaurant. In fact, there are several customs surrounding bread at
02:24an Italian meal, so it's best to bone up before heading out if you want to avoid bread blunders.
02:29You want anything else? More minestrone? More pasta? Another loaf of bread?
02:34According to Elizabeth Minchili, the number one rule of bread in Italy
02:37is not to eat it before your meal arrives, but rather to eat it with other food.
02:42In Italy, bread is not an appetizer, but an accompaniment for the courses to come,
02:46even though it is often served shortly after you are seated. Eat it with soup,
02:49with your meat or fish, or even with your vegetables, but do not eat it alone.
02:53Oh, and never eat it with your pasta course, because doubling down on starches is another
02:57Italian no-no. The slight exception to this last tidbit is that you can use bread to sop
03:02up leftover sauce after you've finished your pasta. We told you there were a lot of bread rolls,
03:08and there's one more that we want to draw your attention to before we move on.
03:11You may be accustomed to reaching for the butter dish as soon as your bread is served.
03:15Now you're talking.
03:17But Italian food tour company NP Tours reports that this is a foreign concept to Italians.
03:22There's no reason to further season or flavor your bread because it's meant to be eaten with
03:26complementary foods, not as a filling snack. Tuscan Traveler says there is one exception to
03:31this rule, and that's when having toast with breakfast. Otherwise, they say,
03:34stick to using it as a sponge for sauces and soups. Aside from violating Italian customs and
03:39etiquette, you may actually cause an uncomfortable situation by asking for butter at a real Italian
03:44restaurant, since they are likely to be stocked with big blocks of cooking butter,
03:47but no presentable serving butters. Of course, if you tend toward a more touristy restaurant,
03:52your bread may even be served with butter or oil today, but using it will certainly reveal
03:56your tourist identity. We promised to move away from bread, so we'll now turn our attention to
04:02coffee. While drinking coffee during a meal is not exactly commonplace, it's a bit more
04:06common in the U.S. than it is in Italy, and that's simply because it's absolutely never done there.
04:11Moreover, as Italy Magazine explains, coffee isn't even served with dessert in Italy,
04:15but will only come after the full meal has been enjoyed, including that tiramisu or cannoli.
04:20As we've already learned, Italian meals are lengthy and leisurely, so it's actually considered
04:24rude for a restaurant to serve coffee with dessert, suggesting that they're trying to
04:28rush you from the table. This rule isn't just about proprietary in Italy, though.
04:32Daily O reports that Italians hold the firm belief that espresso aids in digestion,
04:36making it the perfect after-dinner aid for settling in for a peaceful slumber.
04:42If you're going to order like a true Italian when choosing your after-dessert coffee,
04:45you should avoid an Americano and embrace an unadulterated espresso beverage. But even that's
04:50not the most important rule in selection here, because there's one espresso beverage that's
04:54completely off-limits — the cappuccino. It may be common to order a cappuccino with or
04:59after dessert in the U.S., but The Cut reports that cappuccino is simply never ordered after
05:04noon in Italy, as many Italians appear to believe that cappuccino, conversely,
05:08inhibits digestion. The Cut reports that this is untrue, but that's not the end of the story.
05:12Cappuccino is a dairy-forward espresso drink, so it's a heavy beverage to consume,
05:17and that can make anyone feel uncomfortable, especially after a meal as long and large as
05:21an Italian dinner. With this in mind, it makes good sense that Italians only drink cappuccino
05:26in the morning. Just don't make the mistake of turning heads by ordering a cappuccino after
05:30dessert — or any time after noon, really. Remember what we learned about the true origins
05:36of garlic bread? Unfortunately, you're probably wrong about the origin of Caesar's salad, too.
05:40Yes, it's commonly served at Italian restaurants in America.
05:43I will have the spaghetti with a side salad.
05:46Okay.
05:47If the salad is on top, I send it back.
05:50But Caesar's salads are hard to come by in Italy, and even in authentic Italian
05:54restaurants in the U.S., because they're just not part of the Italian culinary tradition.
05:58As PBS reports, the Caesar salad is another untraditional dish that became popular in
06:03Italian-American restaurants because of its very Italian ingredients that were readily
06:07available to immigrants in the mid-20th century. Unlike garlic bread, though,
06:11Leeds Culinaria reports that this one wasn't even invented by the Italian transplants.
06:15Instead, Caesar dressing was a dip invented in Tijuana in 1924, and ultimately morphed into
06:20the salad plate you know and love today. At its core, there's absolutely nothing
06:24truly Italian about the Caesar salad.
06:28Speaking of sides that you can't order in Italy,
06:30this one may come as the biggest shock so far. You shouldn't order a side of pasta with any meal.
06:35Despite how common pasta sides are at popular Italian restaurants in the U.S.,
06:39My Little Italy reports that pasta is never, ever a side dish in Italy.
06:43Recalling the rigid regimen of Italian dinner courses,
06:46the pasta course is the first dish following a plate of appetizers.
06:49As such, it's a full course on its own, and never comes alongside the main course.
06:54Instead, a plate of pasta in Italy comes fully dressed with its proper sauce and
06:58should be consumed in its proper order, appreciated on its own.
07:01If you're too full for every course but don't want to miss the chance for top-notch pasta
07:05while at an amazing Italian restaurant, just order the pasta course and skip your second.
07:09It's not the best form, but it's better than pretending pasta is a side.
07:13Now here you are, the best spaghetti in town."
07:18And now, to shake your pasta traditions to their very core,
07:21spaghetti and meatballs is not a dish that exists in Italy. Among the biggest mistakes
07:25everyone makes when cooking spaghetti at home, we're guessing you didn't realize that adding
07:29meatballs to the dish was one of them. But if you've been paying attention to the growing list
07:33of Italian food etiquette and customs, you may have been able to piece this one together on your
07:37own. If not, here's what you missed. As Let It Wine confirms, you will absolutely find spaghetti
07:42in all corners of Italy, and meatballs are not hard to find either, but you'll never find them
07:46served together on a single plate. Adding meatballs to spaghetti is yet another purely
07:50American innovation. Since pasta is never a side dish, this means spaghetti does not exist to
07:55accompany meatballs in a single course, but is served individually as a first plate. Meatballs
08:00may certainly be served as a viable second plate after spaghetti, but they are not consumed
08:04together, and there's nothing traditionally inseparable about the two in Italy as in America.
08:10If your favorite moment at the Italian restaurant is when the server sprinkles
08:13Parmesan all over your plate until you yell,
08:15"'When?"' then you may not love this rule of real Italian dining.
08:18"'Do you mind if I keep this?'
08:21"'Thank you.'"
08:22As The Independent reports, giddily grating Parmesan on every pasta is not okay.
08:27In particular, Parmesan definitely does not top any seafood pastas in Italy,
08:31and, as a general rule, shouldn't be grated onto any food hot enough to melt it.
08:35If you absolutely can't go without your grated Parmesan fix while dining in true Italian style,
08:40the most important faux pas to avoid appears to be mixing cheese and seafood. As Miel & Espiel
08:45explains, there are two primary reasons Italians are especially averse to this particular pairing.
08:50First, traditional Italian cuisine generally adheres to pairing only ingredients from the
08:54same region, and cheese and seafood were not typically found in the same topographies
08:58before modern transportation and trade. Therefore, traditional recipes would not
09:02include both due to availability. Second, Italian seafood lovers deeply adore the
09:07taste of the sea, and prefer that nothing as strong as a cheese be introduced to spoil
09:11its pure flavor. If you must grate Parmesan on hot pasta, at least avoid ones with seafood.
09:17We're not completely sure who needs to hear this, but we know you're out there somewhere,
09:21so here goes nothing. Do not ask your Italian server to dress your spaghetti or any other pasta
09:26in ketchup. According to Just One Cookbook, ketchup spaghetti is a nostalgic comfort food
09:31in parts of Japan, and spaghetti with ketchup is common in Sweden, but it's entirely unheard
09:36of in Italy. The same goes for just about any Italian restaurant in America. In fact,
09:40according to Fine Dining Lovers, Italians say it's the least forgivable crime against Italian food.
09:45Still, Why Italians reports that this has nothing to do with hatred toward ketchup in Italy,
09:50citing ketchup as the second most used condiment in the country after mayonnaise.
09:54Italians love dipping french fries in other fast food treats in ketchup,
09:57but there's nothing on an Italian menu that would ever warrant the inclusion of this tomato-based
10:01condiment, so most Italian cuisine restaurants are unlikely to even stock it.