Flavorful U.S.-Italian hybrid dishes

Over a century of hybridizing gives us hearty dishes

It’s hard to imagine American cuisine without Italian influences — without pasta; without spaghetti and meatballs; without pizza.

More than 5 million Italians immigrated to the United States between 1876 and 1910. At first their regional dishes were looked down on, but in the 1940s their popularity grew, especially in New York, where the cuisine eventually entered the realm of fine dining.

There’s something about Italian food that’s completely irresistible, whether it’s authentic or an American adaptation. When I was growing up in the ’50s in Southern California, one of my favorite dishes was my mother’s Americanized version of spaghetti Bolognese. Her sauce teemed with chopped celery and fresh mushrooms, weighed down with more than a pound of ground meat. (Mom used ground beef; I use a combination of ground turkey and sweet Italian sausage.) Mom’s theory was that the dish should have more meat than pasta, more protein than starch. More Americano than Italiano.

“Big Flavors From Italian America,” from the writers at America’s Test Kitchen ($29.95), focuses on Italian American cooking, having sourced many of the recipes from humble delis and hole-in-the-wall restaurants across America as well as unassuming pizza parlors.

“Some dishes never diverged from their roots, but many more adapted to American ingredients and influences,” writes Tucker Shaw, the book’s editorin-chief. “Tastes evolved and inventive cooks devised new ways to serve them.”

Here’s my adaptation of my mother’s spaghetti al Van Nuys, as well as two recipes from the book: noodles tossed with a rich sausage ragu, and a piccata dish that showcases shrimp.

Bring on the bibs. Lock up the dog. Mangia bene.

PHOTO BY DANIEL J. VAN ACKERE Shrimp Piccata Pasta is made with a pound each of shrimp and linguine.