Italian restaurants in America today are many and varied, and much more authentic and/or regionally focused and/or contemporary in style than they used to be. It’s possible to find real Ligurian, Roman, Sicilian, and Calabrian dishes around the country now — not just their Italian-American approximations. At the same time, restaurants like La Tavola Trattoria in Atlanta, Scampo in Boston, and Vetri in Philadelphia are expanding the definitions of what Italian cuisine can be.

But meanwhile…There’s nothing wrong with Italian-American food. It’s not a bastardization of the real thing, it’s its own entity (like Tex-Mex in comparison to true Mexican fare), with legitimate cultural and culinary origins. Besides, who among us doesn’t sometimes crave spaghetti with meatballs, chicken scarpariello, or veal parmigiana?