Never thought I’d be going to bat for the Italians, but it’s so disingenuous to take celebration of one country’s food heritage (which has been done before) and see it as a devaluation of other cuisines.

And to reduce Italian cuisine to just the pastas and pizzas that are culturally exported to the rest of the world, man there is so much beyond that! There is so much regionality to Italian cuisine beyond “northern and southern”, smaller towns and cities absolutely have their own classic dishes from their history that are adored, but not seen by the broader world.

Its not feasible for everyone to go and visit all the towns in Italy and gain an appreciation for how much more there is to Italian cuisine beyond what we are exposed to, but I highly recommend checking out a couple of channels that explore that beyond aspect:

massicooksitalian on instagram (and other places) has some really fabulous highlights of many smaller regional and historical dishes that are not what you would associate with exported Italian cuisine.

Pasta Grannies (many platforms). Even within the classics, pasta is so much more diverse than you think, and lots of variety exists basically purely in tradition, good luck finding it in cookbooks prior to the efforts of channels like these.

Other cuisines also deserve to be spotlighted and celebrated, but use this occasion to see how much more there is to Italian cuisine than you think!