"Jack Tyler" > wrote in message
ups.com...
> If any country ever made use of a fruit that wasn't native to it... I
> believe that Italy couldn't exist without the tomatoes brought back
> from the "new world". You have to wonder just what the Hell they ate
> before the tomato arrived.
>
> ;-)
>
> Jack

Quite a lot, in fact, Jack. The stereotypical NY/Sicilian everything Tomato
and Basil is a myth. I have meet so many 3-4th Generations Italians that
claim their food dishes are just the way it is/was done in the old country,
yet they have never been outside the US.

You and some others here keep talking about regional differences in Mexican
cooking and then expound on what is and is not authentic. Italy has great
regional dishes in every region from Lombardy to Calabria that do not
include Tomato and have for a long time. Certainly As does Sicily and
Sardinia with its Moor/Northern Africa
influence. American views of Italian cooking tend to be Sicilian and
Neapolitan, heavy on Olive oil, tomato and garlic because of the large
immigrant influx from those regions. you have Butters and Lard in the North,
the Spices Adriatic seafood from the Veneto with the temperate climates and
locations of
Tuscany, Umbria and Emilia Romagna mixing the north and south, the seas
never far away.

The de' Medici Family in 1532/33 was credited for introducing France to
Haute Cuisine. Before that French /European cooking quite tasteless and
was
"not prone to either of the vast Venetian or the Moor style cosine, nor
their spices. Italian cooking is the Mother of all European Latin cooking
( Larousse Gastronomique) .

So taking the long way around to answer your question, "You have to wonder
just what the Hell they ate before the tomato arrived". Quite a lot in
fact,
such as:

Pasta con Uovo made with many, many sauces, only one of which was Salsa di
Pomo d Ori.
Fettuccine al Burro
Scalloppine al Marsala
Polpette all Casalinga
Vitello Tonnato
Scaloppine al Limone
Gnocchi alla Romana
Coda alla Vaccinara
Pollo alla Diavola
Bistecca alla Fiorentina
Tortellini
Lasagne Pasticciate
Pollo alla Bolognese
and this barely skims the regions much less the
local variations within the regions and towns nor the many seafood from both
seas

GG, As for wheat used to make Noodles/Pasta being brought to Italy from
China by Polo, no that is a myth
Marco Polo did not bring Macaroni nor Pasta nor wheat to make such to
Italy:
http://www.cliffordawright.com/history/mac_print.html

and yet we do have ancient Romans were eating Polenta back in the day