By Jeff Harrell

So you think you love Italian food here in America? You go into your friendly neighborhood Italian restaurant craving fettuccine Alfredo, or the Chicken Vesuvio. Or when the server offers fresh mozzarella or Parmesan for your linguine with clam sauce, you bury the seafood pasta dish under a mound of cheese.

Television's genuine Italian judge on The Food Network's "Iron Chef America" cringes at the thought. 

"In Italy, cheese on top of seafood is a no-no," Rome-born Mario Rizzotti, one of the world's foremost experts on authentic Italian cuisine, says by phone from his home in suburban Chicago. "Unfortunately," he says as he lists fettuccine Alfredo and Chicken Vesuvio among several dishes that are actually American creations by Italian-heritage chefs using ingredients grown on American soil, "this is the Italian Americanization of the products of the Italian cuisine. There is a market for it. People like it. But in Italy, we don't eat that."

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Source: http://www.southbendtribune.com/