Out of Pod Experience

Depends on how big the crustacean were... small = shrimp, large = prawn.

Right, like I said, if the rest of the world is saying it, then its correct.

Now I want a pepperoni pizza.

LOL. I don't think anyone has to want to name it anything. It's already widely known as 'pepperoni,' in American culture, and has been for decades. You won't be 'taking it back' with your online etymology lesson.

i guess the moral of all this is "when in rome..."

And we have a winner! Nice pun, btw.

Dude, people create new foods with old names or variants of old foods with new names all the time. Just because there's nothing in Italy called pepperoni doesn't make the American stuff an inauthentic food.

In France ragout is stew. Beef stew with potatoes and carrots in gravy would be an example of a ragout in France.

Inspired by ragout but very different is the Italian meat sauce ragu which is eaten on pasta. A meaty tomato sauce served on top of noodles would be called ragu in Italy.

Just because Italian ragu isn't a carbon copy of French ragout doesn't make the former an inauthentic food.

Hrothgar, while it's true food is constantly evolving (and thankfully so), I don't think you've read what I wrote. You mentioned that there's nothing in Italy called pepperoni and that doesn't make the American stuff an inauthentic food.

Salame piccante is pepperoni; it's an Italian meat. It's not a Bavarian meat product, it's not an American or English meat product, it's not even a Spanish meat product, which would be the closest with chorizo; it is AN ITALIAN meat product. The word "peperone" is an Italian word that somehow got mixed up with what people now call pepperoni...blah blah blah, I've said it enough times already.

Your analogy, however, is puzzling. French ragout is beef stew. It's not a French dish, the French didn't invent it, they just named it ragout. In Italy it's called spezzatino, in English it's called beef stew. When the Italians made spezzatino for the first time, they didn't call it souffle'. Even if 60 million Italians called it souffle', it still wouldn't be souffle'. They could have made the best spezzatino in the world and it still wouldn't be souffle'.

Pizza, on the other hand, IS an Italian food. It's served all over the world in many different styles, but it's all still pizza. No one calls a hot dog a pizza. Pepperoni pizza IS a carbon copy of pizza diavola (and usually a poor copy, with some exceptions here and there). Salamino/pepperoni IS an Italian food. Americans didn't invent pizza diavola (pepperoni pizza) and call it pepperoni pizza...they ate pizza diavola in Italy and screwed up the name and ended up calling it pepperoni pizza because they assumed that the word "peperoni" meant pepper and since salamino was spicy they thought that's what it was.

I'm not the pizza police. I'm not saying that Italy is the only place to get good pizza...I've never said that. MD said that the rest of the world was right by calling it pepperoni based solely on the popularity of the word, and I'm just pointing out the FACT that the rest of the world is wrong. This isn't an opinion, this is simple fact. You can get butthurt all you want by me telling you it's wrong, but that doesn't change the fact it's a misnomer. Spezzatino is not souffle'. Prawns are not the same thing as shrimp. The word "pepperoni" is not even an Italian word, although the rest of the world mistakenly thinks it is and continues to call pizza with salamino "pepperoni pizza". It's "peperoni" and it means something entirely different. Now we can go round and round with this all day if you want, but that doesn't change the fact that everyone who calls salamino "pepperoni" is mistaken. Just laugh at the misnomer and silly mistake and move on.

Same thing with pasta "alfredo". Pasta "Alfredo" came from movie stars in the 1930's and 40's vacationing in Rome who ate the poorest pasta dish ever, pasta with oil and parmeggiano, and they thought the mixture of parmeggiano and olive oil somehow equaled heavy cream. They raved about how amazing it was when in fact it's what people eat when there's literally nothing left in the kitchen. It caught on around the world and now millions upon millions of people think noodles with friggin' disgusting heavy cream is an Italian dish, when in fact Italians won't even go near the stuff. Food has to make sense. There are rules with food. Just because you put Marmite on pasta doesn't make it Bolognese. Do you not understand that Italian food is actually protected by law? You can be SUED for trying to pass off sub-par wine, cheese, meat, and other food as Italian if it's not. The French do the same. So yes, naming and labeling your food properly is very important. Granted, this doesn't apply to something as general as a pepperoni pizza, but my point is there IS authenticity in a name, and if the rest of the world starts selling Kraft Parmesan Cheese as Parmeggiano Reggiano, the rest of the world will have one big lawsuit on their hands.

look. all i want to know....is if prawns and shrimp are the same species. if tin-yam chan didn't settle the dispute earlier perhaps some other crustacean expert will step forward.

You know its funny now that I think about it, but I've never have actually eaten crawdad. I catch them all the time but usually just a couple to throw in the horse trough.

Balderdash. Pizza isn't an Italian food? Are you serious? When food originates from a place, it does become that place's food. I don't care how popular it is elsewhere, it's still the original country's food. Maybe that offends your sensibilities and crushes your opinion of yourself, but that doesn't change the fact that it's true. I guess sushi isn't Japanese, then, since tons of Americans eat it?

It doesn't mean it's inauthentic if it's made anywhere else, as I've already said numerous times. In fact, one year the Japanese won the international pizza competition with the best pizza in the world. The Turks were the first to cook flat bread on a rock and put food on it, which the Italians took and made pizza out of. I'm not discussing the anthropology of pizza, but pizza as it is today is an Italian dish. The only exception is if we're talking about utter garbage pizza like Pizza Hut, Domino's, Papa John's, Little Caeser's, etc. That's sh*t, not pizza...utter sh*t.

Go ahead and call your average American-made ham San Daniele or Parma prosciutto and see what happens. Lawsuits.

When I go to the states, I don't ask for a salamino pizza....I ask for pepperoni. I get that it's not going to change. I'm just saying people should be aware of the difference, at the very least when they come here.