How often have you tried to cook Italian? How many times have you spent hours online looking for the best Italian recipes, or even asked a friend how to make a traditional dessert? Or are you one of those people who just walked out of a book store hugging a cookbook with enough recipes to last you a lifetime?

If you did any of these things, you're more than likely able to put together a couple of good dishes, you may even, in fact, master them, but do you really know what truly makes them "Italian"? Because we need to be careful, especially in the US, where so many dishes get the "Italian" tag, even if they have nothing to do with Italian food.