by Mike Riccetti

Italian restaurants have been an especially beloved fixture in America for at least a century.

Featuring flying pizzas, slippery strands of spaghetti paired with plump meatballs that most have savored since childhood, tomato sauce ladled and consumed by the pint, garlickly and buttered toasted bread quick to leave a grease stain, tender slices of veal, gooey eggplant Parmesan, gregarious owners, the air filled with Sinatra and Martin or Verdi and Donizetti, a lively and comfortable dining room, generous mounds of food, copious amounts of wine....one from this cluttered group of images might be the first evoked in the average American concerning Italian food. 

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Source: http://www.examiner.com/