Italian food from Trader Joe's Disappoints Italians, as you'd expect

This.

Pretty much anything mass-produced is going to be lower quality than something made in small batches by hand

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It’s not even so much that the machine/professional workers can’t replicate the techniques, but that they then have to package it up and somehow deliver it to an end user many days/weeks/months later. It’s the storage that kills you, and that’s unavoidable with something that necessarily has to be sitting on the shelf waiting for purchase.

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Right. And the major shareholders being German and the food being Italian is irrelevant.

I think the problem is more a semantic problem.
Italians frown up with Maccheroni con sugo bolognese, because the actual Italian dish is Maccheroni con ragu` alla Napoletana https://www.cookaround.com/ricetta/Ragu-alla-napoletana.html

And if you ask in Italy “spaghetti alla marinara” you’ll get an expensive dish with a lot of seafood.

Besides, even in Italian supermarkets precooked food normally tastes not very good.

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The American street-Italian pronunciation is how peoplefrom the south of Italy once pronounced things. It was a regional minority language that would have been laughed at a century ago when a lot of the Italian-Americans came over, and now has nearly died out. Hardly anyone in Italy speaks the Napulitano language any more.

Similar is ‘goombah’ for ‘cumpari’, or ‘kapeesh?’ for ‘capisce?’

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Ironically most “italian” frozen food from Trader Joes is in fact imported from Italy. I’ve noticed and been surprised by this when looking at the packaging. I think every pizza I’ve ever bought from them, the pasta and sauce bags in the freezer section, etc.

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yes! absolutely irrelevant to them. You keep making my point, thank you.

You see, they absolutely taste it before they offer it, to make sure its ok of course. And they think it is.

Try German Italian food from Aldi - same thing.

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Bet any of it beats pepperoni hot pockets.

Italian food from Trader Joe’s Disappoints Italians

It disappoints Americans too.

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I’m well aware of the history of these particular pronunciations. I’m also well aware that it’s it’s a hell of a lot more complicated than that. Most of these Italian American pronunciations are the result of the unique ways in which various dialects collided in East Coast cities, especially NY. And would be no more intelligible to the Southern Italian immigrants of 150 years ago than they are to Italians today.

Purely on the subject of “Gabagool” that pronunciation is pretty much only used in Jersey, and I have seen the reaction out of Neapolitans I know to it’s use. Very what the fuck. Throwing a D into Mozzarella is gonna be understandable to Italians today, but it’s not correct and might not have any currency. Scungili is apparently a god damn mystery

It’s the insistence that these very American, very regionally American pronunciations, are the only totally authentic way real Italians pronounce Italian that’s funny.

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Could easily be cross-posted with the burn-inducing McDonald’s coffee thread, especially once the Hot Apple Pies started getting tossed around.

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So do not attempt an “American Pie” on the McDonalds versions

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Thats because the Torys sold all our flavour after WWII the only flavour that is Tory approved is Cardboard!

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In part, perhaps, because there’s not really such a thing as Italian food? Rather there’s Tuscan food, Roman food, Neapolitan food, Sicilian food, etc., etc…

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What kind of flavours are we talking about here? If it’s good tomatoes, onions, garlic, etc., then props your friend and boo to my Philistine compatriots, and can he/she/they come round and cook for us some time?

But if the predominant taste was sugar …

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As I recall they specifically did not like that they could “taste the garlic.”

(I don’t want to generalize about Brits-- it was probably just his friends unique tastes-- but he is a good cook and was kind of confused about the situation.)

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Oh, I am totally on your friend’s side here.

No, I have relatives like this. My charitable rationalisation is that the older ones were brought up during rationing, and they passed their tastes on to their children.

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(I probably eat too much garlic-- I sometimes get people asking me if I’ve been eating garlic and I often say “uhh, yeah. . . yesterday.”)

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First rule of garlic club: there is no such thing as too much garlic.

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Second rule of the garlic club: Only non-members can tell who’s in, and who’s not.

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You just described how food in the USA tastes to the rest of the world. Look, I was born and raised in the USA, but spending my entire adult life in Bavaria has opened my taste buds.

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