Quoted from DemocraticVoiceOfReason

Most restaurants serve "Americanized" versions of ethnic food -- even the so-called Italian restaurants.  Of course, one can argue that what we think is Italian food was actually created outside Italy.   For example -- It is a fact that Veal, Chicken and Eggplant Parmigiana were "created" by an American living in Great Britain. Pizza as we know it was really "created" in the U.S. -- Chicago and New York.  The tomato isn't even Italian -- it came from the Americas .. brought back by Christopher Columbus in the 1490's/early 1500's.   In fact, Julius Caesar nor any of the Roman Emperors had a favorite tomato sauce recipe -- despite the claims of Lydia Bastianich or Giada or Rachel Ray.  If they ever actually cracked a book and studied history, they would know better.

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Eggplant Parmesan, parmigiana di melanzane in Italian, is one of the classic preparations of southern Italy. It is a preparation associated with the cooking of Naples, but it is popular in the Campanian countryside and Calabria and Sicily too. Eggplant Parmesan is a casserole dish made by slicing eggplant thinly and frying it in olive oil. Some cooks dip the eggplant slices in batter or egg before frying, some just fry it, and many flour it first and fry it, while others more concerned with making the dish light, will bake or grill the eggplant slices. The eggplant is layered successively in a baking casserole with tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, parmigiano cheese, basil, and hard-boiled egg slices.

There are several theories about the origin of eggplant Parmesan. The most obvious is that the name of the dish derives from parmigiano cheese, the predominate cheese used in the dish. Many food writers have voiced suspicion of this explanation because parmigiano is not native to Naples or other regions of southern Italy where eggplant Parmesan is found. They argue that, in fact, the dish originates in Parma in northern Italy, because either Parmesan refers to the city of Parma (which it does) or because the Parmesan cheese is from Parma (which it is).

I’ve never been persuaded by this line of thinking because from at least the fourteenth century parmigiano was a widely traded cheese and found throughout Italy. Furthermore, the eggplant made it’s first appearance in Italy in Sicily and the southern regions, not in the north and it’s likely that a dish for eggplant would be invented in the south. Second, the dish is famous in the Campania region in general, Naples in particular, as well as in Sicily and Calabria and not in Parma.

Another suggestion concerning the origin of the dish is offered by the Sicilian food authority Pino Correnti who argues that the word parmigiano actually comes from damigiana, a sleeve made of wicker where you put a wine bottle, or in this case, the hot casserole. Another explanation to the origin of the name of this dish is reported by cookbook authors Mary Taylor Simeti, Vincent Schiavelli, and several others. They suggest that the name has nothing to do with parmigiano cheese or Parma the city, but derives from the Sicilian palmigiana not parmigiana, meaning “shutters,” the louvered panes of shutters or palm-thatched roofs that the layered eggplant slices are meant to resemble. Simeti suggests that since the Sicilian have a “probrem” pronouncing the “l” it became parmigiana. Another Sicilian food writer, Franca Colonna Romano Apostolo, suggests that the name is parmiciana, the equivalent in Sicilian dialect to “Persian,” and not parmigiano, a cheese that is not important to the original dish.  These are speculative suggestions not supported by the evidence.


Let’s dig a little deeper here. The first mention of something resembling an eggplant parmesan is from Il saporetto by Simone Prudenzani (1387-1440), where the recipe refers to parmigiano cheese. Prudenzani was from Orvieto and his Il saporetto is a rhyming poem about food and not a cookbook. But foods are mentioned including “parmisciana.” The eighteenth-century Neapolitan chef Vincenzo Corrado mentions in his book Il cuoco galante published in 1786, that eggplant can be cooked alla Parmegiana, meaning the eggplant was seasoned with butter, herbs, cinnamon and other spices and grated parmigiano cheese and covered with a cream sauce made with egg yolks before being oven-baked.

I believe the version we know today, with its parmesan cheese and tomato ragu first appears in print in Ippolito Cavalcanti’s Cucina teorico-pratica published in Naples in 1837. Given that Corrado’s recipe was published in 1786, this isn’t a huge amount of time, so it looks like it sprung into existence in Naples in the intervening time, which is incidentally the time that tomatoes were becoming more popular for the first time in Italy.

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Expert: Davide andrew Papa - 9/17/2001

Question
Hello, I'm a restaurant management student and i need an answer for one question for my project, i hope u can help me because i already tried all the websites i could to find the answer. "What is the origin or the history of Chicken Parmesan?" Thank you very much!

Sincerely
Anny Wang



Answer
Dear Anny,

History tells us that,400 hundred years ago..in Bologna Italy..Whole veal cutlets was traditionally crumbed with Parma Ham,and cheese..the dish..this dish became famous all around the world as veal Bolognese..In the town of parma italy,they made a similar veaL DISH CALLED VEAL PARMIGIANA,
which is veal cutlets crumbed,and deep fried..No cheese,No
Ham,and definately no tomatoes..This famous Dish became known as veal parmigiana (originating from Parma)..Unfortunately..too many cooks..and hundreds of years later..others have put cheese and tomatoe on top,and replaced the veal cutlets..with some other kind of meat..but they forgot to change the name..and hence the incorrect name now exsits for the product known as Veal Parmigiana..and Veal Bolognese..Many people think that a Snitzel is a parmigiana...but that too is incorrect..

Parmigiana is a crumbed cutlet of veal,correctly named Costolette Parmigiana..It is fried in olive oil..and its originating recipe was born in the town of Parma In Italy.

I hope this helps..Parma is also famous for Parmesan cheese and Parma ham also known as procuitto..Best regards Chef Davide..(good Question..? )

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I think we can agree now that ancient pizza is a toss-up, 'middle' pizza was Greek, and modern pizza (pre-American) was definitely Italian -- Neapolitan, even! http://www.passion-4-pizza.com/history_of_pizza.html

Quoted from DemocraticVoiceOfReason

Pizza in its ORIGINAL form a flat bread with other food items on top was created LONG before there was an Italy -- long before there even was a Roman Empire.  Ancient civilizations in the Middle East and Asia had some form of "pizza"  centuries before Romulus and Remus were suckled by a she-wolf and eventually founded the City of Rome.  There are many sources on the history of food that will vouch for that.

The pizza that Americans knows - principally the Chicago-style and the New York-style - was created by Italian-American immigrants IN America not Italy --  pizza, itself, has been around for thousands of years.

As for Eggplant, Veal and Chicken Parmigiana there was a dish, costelette Parmigiana (crumb coated, deep fried veal), served in the Parma region BUT it was not served with red sauce or with any cheese on it.   The Costelette Parmigiana was very similar to Schnitzel served in Germany and Austria --- and food historians can not say for certain where crumb coated, deep fried veal or chicken was first served.   After WW2, Eggplant, Chicken and Veal Parmigiana became popular in both the US and Great Britain --- and it was in the US and Great Britain that red sauce and mozzarella cheese was put on top.

So -- sorry to burst your balloons -- neither pizza nor veal/chicken/eggplant parmigiana as Americans in the 20th and 21st century know them was actually created in Italy.  

Quoted from joebxr

You obviously did not read what I posted or understood it very well...but go ahead and live the fantasy you
want to....there is original food and then there is AMERICANIZED food. All foods go through generations of
change, but the "origin" of the food does not change! BIG DIFFERENCE!

Quoted from DemocraticVoiceOfReason

I read what you posted and understand quite well.  There are still some people who hold on to the quaint but incorrect fantasy that pizza and eggplant/chicken/veal parmigiana was created in Italy.   The FACTS speak for themselves -- pizza has been around for thousands of years --- long before there was an Italy --- that IS a FACT.  Human were eating pizza in the Middle East and in Asia for thousands of years before Romulus & Remus .. that is simply an incontrovertible FACT.  The origin of pizza does NOT change -- and it was NOT in Italy.

I am not going to repeat the whole thing about chicken parmigiana.

Oh -- and Pasta did not originate in Italy either -- it was brought to Italy by either the Arabs or the Greeks (long before Marco Polo).  The Greeks had a HUGE influence on what we think of as Italian cooking.  That is why the best Italian restaurants are run by Greeks.  The Greeks are simply the best cooks in the world.

Quoted from joebxr

Well, you can continue to believe whatever fantasy food origin you want, and you didn't read what I posted (link on pizza).
however, this is a "debate" not worth arguing over. If you insist you want to argue about it, I will retaliate by getting MC1
to enter into the discussion. They will show you how this is al the fault of the democraps; how Metroplex funded the Egyptian pizza
palace using taxpayer funds, and they will dump endless cut-n-paste tax statements to show just how wrong all of this
is, and demand that you answer.......so, what's it gonna be?  We say food is great from wherever regardless...or...face the
wrath of MC1?????

Quoted from DemocraticVoiceOfReason

#1)  I couldn't give a sh*t what MC1 has to think about this subject or any other.  He/she is a just a coward hiding behind a username, He/she is on ignore.  I don't read his/her posts.  So your "threats" are meaningless to me.

#2) I never said that the Americanized version of Italian food that many have come to love isn't great.  I just stated the facts -- pizza, pasta and a whole lot of other "Americanized notions of Italian food" did NOT originate in Italy.

Quite honestly, the issue is boring.  So I will walk away believing the facts and you can choose to do what you want.

Quoted from joebxr

I only believe in FACTS!!!!!  Sorry!
What's boring is your insistence when I've shown you FACTS!!!

MC1..GO GET HIM !!!   (LOL)

Quoted from bumblethru

Who really gives a sh!t?????
I mean really.....
OMG!!!!!