Of course, it goes without saying that many Italians and Italian-Americans alike have vested, entrenched opinions about their foods. So when Alberto Grandi — an Italian academic and a professor of history at an Italian university in Parma — made some especially controversial comments about the provenance of certain Italian dishes in a recent interview with the Financial Times, it's no surprise some feathers were ruffled.
Grandi said that some of the most cherished Italian dishes were actually not that Italian and even ventured to say that cheese produced in Wisconsin is comparable or even better than "real" Parmigiano Reggiano made in Italy. People weren't pleased. And by that, I mean they were flipping tables across the land a la Teresa Giudice circa 2008.
