Talk:Fettuccine Alfredo

Fettuccine Alfredo and fettuccine al burro aren't the same dish

From Italian to read that the fettuccine Alfredo and fettuccine al burro are the same thing is bad. "Fettuccine Alfredo" originated in Italy, but over time the Americans have Americanised it by adding random ingredients (e.g. chicken), ignoring the right combinations of flavours (for people with a food culture, chicken on pasta isn't a respectable combination), as unfortunately they still do very often, and now there's no longer an Italian dish called "fettuccine Alfredo" (except for only two Italian restaurants that still prepare it). In Italy we have a pasta dish called "pasta al burro", but it isn't the same as "fettuccine Alfredo"; they're two different dishes, although quite similar. I propose deleting the "or fettuccine al burro" phrase (in the second line). JacktheBrown (talk) 22:48, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Dishes have variations and can evolve but still have the same name. To say you can't add chicken to a pasta dish is the worst kind of pedantry – it's one of my favorites whether it's common in Italy or not! This kind of food purism often has little basis in history and I'd suggest reading [1]. Perhaps the intro could be worded differently to indicate that the names don't proscribe just a single universal recipe but there's no need to excise this nomenclature, and the article should describe them together with a description of how they are served. Fettuccine al burro redirects here since it's a legitimate name, and covering close concepts in a single article as such is the most appropriate. It's still an Italian dish, even if "Alfredo" is less used there and Americans often add cream. Reywas92^Talk 01:11, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

@Reywas92: regarding the (gravely biased, and therefore 100% unreliable) newspaper article you sent me, I quote here a user's reply within this post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/financial-times_everything-i-an-italian-thought-i-knew-activity-7045303339403608064-HB23; "The professor is just a sensationalist who made up a catchy title for his podcast just to publish on an international paper. He’s vastly (and rightfully) ignored in Italy.
Of course the modern versions of Italian traditional food are “only” 70 years old, but the basis of the recipes date centuries ago and the evolution is a direct consequence of 1) progress 2) wealth and aboundance 3) growing affordability of sophisticated food by the masses.
Let me give you an example: green olives from Ascoli Piceno are famous from the Roman times (as we can tell from mentions from Cato, Marziale and many other classic Roman writers). Around 1600 people started stuffing them with herbs (onions, carrots, leek…cheap stuffing). Around 1800 the stuffing started including mixed meat (pork, beef, veal and some cheese and nutmeg): the leftovers from rich families’ banquets.
In 1875 the production bacame industrial (Mariano Mazzocchi production, who also started the first marketing of the product).
Around the late 1950s, with the progressive growth in wealth of Italy, the recipe started making its way into households and morphed even further, including parmisan.
Nowadays you can find them fish stuffed or even a full vegan version." JacktheBrown (talk) 19:29, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

@Reywas92: I said that, for people with a food culture, it isn't a respectable combination; I don't want to list the reasons here (if you like to eat it, I'm happy for you). If we Italians say that, for people with a food culture, it isn't a respectable combination, we're very reliable. Anyway, let's go back to the original topic, which isn't that. JacktheBrown (talk) 01:26, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

JackkBrown, you have been an editor long enough to know quite well that your personal opinion is utterly irrelevant on Wikipedia and that a statement like we Italians say it's an objectively wrong combination, we're very, very reliable constitutes Original research which is forbidden on Wikipedia. Who appointed you the spokesperson for "we Italians"? Hundreds of millions of people worldwide frequently eat chicken and pasta dishes without being poisoned or vomiting, so your objectivity in this matter is in question. All that matters is what reliable sources say, not what anonymous Wikipedia editors say. You know this. Cullen328 (talk) 02:37, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

The article describes the closely related fettuccine al burro and fettucine Alfredo, both invented in and still served in Italy. It is objectively correct to say it's Italian cuisine, and then we can say the heavier recipe with cream is an American variant. Just because your nonna makes it a certain way doesn't mean this can't say how these recipes are related. Reywas92^Talk 02:55, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

The point is: nobody (or their nonna) makes "Fettuccine Alfredo" in Italy. It really doesn't exit outside of the restaurants that sell this supposed Italian "dish" to tourists (see Gambero Rosso article here). A savvy waiter may offer it up if asked, and at least one Roman restaurant offers "Fettuccine Alfredo" variants with truffles and/or caviar, but that's about as far as it goes. Elsewhere, it is just what you feed to children and convalescents, and it is not referred to as "Alfredo" anything. (Also, in my view, an Italian editor sharing local knowledge on an article's Talk page does not seem like a violation of WP:OR policy. Whist we can all probably agree that simply saying: "I'm Italian" doesn't necessarily make someone an expert, the project as a whole does does benefit greatly from local knowledge.) -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 08:24, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

@Cl3phact0: exactly. As an Italian I cannot express my culinary knowledge, because I risk, as has already happened here, being labeled, without any respect for myself or for any other Italian, as "original research"; it's clear that I, as an Italian (and as a very important contributor to the encyclopedia of topics concerning Italian cuisine), know much more about the cuisine of my country than an American. Since when did Wikipedia become a place where only Americans can speak?. Wikipedia isn't the Nazi Germany, Wikipedia is a MAGNIFICENT place; let's try not to ruin this very beautiful environment. JacktheBrown (talk) 15:59, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

JackkBrown, you are not a reliable source just as I am not a reliable source. The role of Wikipedia editors and the purpose of Wikipedia talk pages is to identify, evaluate and summarize what reliable sources say about a topic. Literally nobody said or implied that only Americans can speak here. But you need to follow policies and guidelines just like every other editor. Cullen328 (talk) 18:02, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

@Cullen328: if we're all on the same level in this encyclopaedia, I'm happy. Thank you for your comment. JacktheBrown (talk) 18:30, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Re "ignoring the right combinations of flavours (for people with a food culture, chicken on pasta isn't a respectable combination)". This is a peculiar statement. Yes, chicken on pasta is not an Italian dish. But claiming that it is a universal truth about "respectable" combinations is silly -- there are many Chinese dishes involving noodles and chicken. For that matter, in terms of combining flavors, many recipes for tortelli or pasticcio involve the combination of pasta and chicken. Remember, this is an encyclopedia. We report on things in a neutral way. The article already says that the versions with chicken etc. were invented in the US. There is no reason to insult people whose food culture is American rather than Italian. Personally, I agree that that is a silly thing to do. But that is an opinion, aka original research. --Macrakis (talk) 20:52, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Another related observation about the content and accuracy of this article

Our article reads: in Italy this dish is usually called simply "fettuccine al burro", although outside of Rome, "fettuccine" is called "tagliatelle" (Italian wikipedia redirects from the former to the latter). Also, in Italy, the "dish" itself – in so much as there is such a thing beyond the restaurant that makes it – would likely be called "pasta in bianco" or "pasta al burro e parmigiano" (as it would likely be made with pretty much any pasta that's laying about in the pantry, not specifically "fettuccine"). -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 16:06, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
PS: Please see discussion at Wikipedia:Help desk too. -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 16:14, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
PPS: The folks who have one of the Roman restaurants that sells this "dish" have opened a branch in Saudi Arabia. [NB: One has to wonder if the whole story is a clever marketing ploy (cooked up by the nonno, with a wink and a grin, way back in the day).] -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 09:47, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Tell the tens of thousands of Italian-American restaurants who sell this dish and the hundreds of millions of Americans who eat this dish and have for 100 years that the whole thing is a clever marketing ploy cooked up when their great-grandparents were young and gullible, Cl3phact0. While you are at it, examine the pasta sauce section of thousands of American supermarkets. Arguing against a century of reality as reflected by countless reliable sources is not a good strategy. Cullen328 (talk) 10:00, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, but personally I don't understand the eternal discussions about this dish. Fettuccine all'Alfredo (or "al triplo burro": so it is mentioned by Carnacina) was born in Italy as a local variation of Fettuccine al burro, which is a typical home cooking dish. Then it was adopted in the states, where it changed again, and got an enormous popularity. Its origin is well attested, its later developments too, where is the problem? Alex2006 (talk) 11:29, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

No problem (except that we may inadvertently be propagating a myth invented by nonno "the King of the noodles" Alfredo), though it seems that this subject is something of a gastro-cultural third rail (oddly). Perhaps we could paraphrase the title of the Gambero Rosso article mentioned above (The strange case of Fettuccine Alfredo, an almost unknown dish in Italy that's famous in America) and use it as a title for this article. -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 14:53, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Where would the myth be? Alex2006 (talk) 17:07, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Any such alteration of the article title would be a serious violation of the Neutral point of view, which is a core content policy. Cullen328 (talk) 17:50, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

@Cullen328: It was a somewhat tongue-in-cheek comment (in order to underscore the core point about "Fettuccine Alfredo" not really being an Italian thing – do read the article if you have time). Fear not, I would never attempt to rename an article (especially one of such grave import and potentially contentious nature) without clear community consensus! Sorry if any confusion. All's well. -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 21:20, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Myth No. 1 would be: that Italians (apart from those who are in some way involved with or knowledgeable about the two or three Roman restaurants that serve this dish, or perhaps those who have read about or otherwise discovered the Italo-American dish by this name) have any idea what "Fettuccine Alfredo" is;

It's also possible (though much harder to prove or disprove) our Myth No. 2 is: that nonno Alfredo's version of this history is in fact true (rather than a good-natured, tongue-in-cheek story that proved to be highly profitable, and which eventually took on a culturally significant life of its own – as is my suspicion).

[NB: Being of a sceptical nature, and reading in one of our sources that the "famous" gold cutlery was melted down to support Mussolini's war effort – and yet, lo and behold, there it is on display in the restaurant did tweak my bs meter.]

In any case, I've tried to wikify the syntax a bit (and strengthen the article's sources) to reflect some of what I understand to be the concerns initially raised above and elsewhere by JackkBrown. Please let me know if we're moving in the right direction to help establish truly NPOV here (there's room for improvement still, in my view). Cheers, Cl3phact0 (talk) 21:00, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Cl3phact0, what is your reliable source for Myth 1? Americans who know anything about cuisines all know that Italian-American cuisine differs from Italian cuisine, just as Chinese-American cuisine differs from Chinese cuisine, and Mexican-American cuisine differs from Mexican cuisine. As for Myth 2, the origin stories of many culinary dishes worldwide are often based on legends and lore, and there are often rival contenders for original creator. Consider an article that I wrote, Florentine (culinary term). The common origin story has been debunked but it is still worthy of mention in the article without saying in Wikipedia's voice that it is true. Helpful would be a reliable source that debunks the Fettucine Alfredo origin story. Cullen328 (talk) 21:52, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Re: Myth No. 1, the Gambero Rosso is pretty authoritative (in Italy anyhow). If they say it's "almost unknown" (Italian: quasi sconosciuto) in Italy, I'd give that high-marks for reliability. The WineAndFoodTour.it! site is probably less authoritative (and may or may not be WP:RS), but again, we have an Italian foodie source that states unequivocally "to be honest almost no Italian knows it" (Italian: anche se a dirla tutta quasi nessuno italiano lo conosce). We also have the title of Maurizio Pelli's book: Fettuccine Alfredo, Spaghetti Bolognaise & Caesar Salad; The Triumph of the World's False Italian Cuisine (to which I do not have access, but we have it in our "Bibliography" section).

[NB: I made no mention of "Americans" per se. Perhaps I implied that this is primarily an American dish (which I would say it is) by referring to it as "Italo-American", so I'm not sure what your point is when you say Americans who know anything about cuisines all know.]

PS: Cullen328, here is another pretty solid source for the claim that this is essentially an Italo-American dish – this one from the Corriere della Sera, a highly reputable national newspaper (and also in Italian, I'm afraid). The claim is that the two competing Roman restaurants ("Scrofa" and "Vero" for short) are "almost the only ones to offer [Fettuccine Alfredo] in Italy" (Italian: gli unici quasi a proporla in Italia). -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 15:59, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

@Cl3phact0: YES, I'm Italian and, literally, Italians who don't know Italian-American cuisine don't know this dish; only two restaurants in the whole of Italy offer fettuccine Alfredo. JacktheBrown (talk) 16:05, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Re: Myth No. 2, again difficult to prove or disprove. There is an enormous amount of recycling of our article in the more recent sources, and the older sources are a lot more vague about some of the salient details (e.g., name of dish, golden cutlery, etc.). We're stating these things as facts. They may be myths or apocrypha.

For what it's worth, I do find the fact that we repeat the "origin" story three times, mention Di Lelio(s) a dozen or more times, and evoke the Pickford/Fairbanks story a few times (and that we also have a stand alone article about at least one of the restaurants) to be somewhat promotional in nature – all things considered.

Nice Florentine article. Who knew. Cheers, Cl3phact0 (talk) 10:00, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

@Cl3phact0: exactly. If we consider Gambero Rosso unreliable, then we must also consider American Cookery not authoritative, because, as Cullen328 implicitly wrote in response to a comment of mine, in this encyclopaedia we are all on the same level, so an authoritative American cookbook cannot be worth more than an authoritative Italian cookbook. JacktheBrown (talk) 14:05, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Piano sano e lontano. If you, Cullen328, et al. are in agreement with the direction we're heading, I'd be happy to continue re-working the article per above comments to see where we land. Neutral about anything else. Cheers, Cl3phact0 (talk) 15:24, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

@Cl3phact0:, thanks to your answer. Now,

• about myth1: in Italy fettuccine Alfredo is known only as an italo-american dish, and the reason is that it is a dish invented in a Roman restaurant (now it is served in two, because di Lelio gave up his own restaurant with the recipe but then changed his mind and reopened another in the same neighborhood) and the recipe is secret. No one really knows how they are prepared, and being a variation of burro e parmigiano, people continued to cook plain burro e parmigiano. And no, Gambero rosso (like la Cucina italiana) is not really a trustworthy source anymore. They are two victims of the social media.

• about myth2 (the golden forks): this is not a myth, because the thing is attested by several trustworthy sources, including Luigi Carnacina (1888-1981), who was roman and one of the most important Italian gastronomes of the twentieth century. In his book Roma in cucina (Ed. Giunti, 1975, p. 72), after hazarding a recipe for the dish ("Fettuccine al triplo burro"), he writes: "Il bravo Alfredo, purtoppo scomparso, sapeva servirle con la sua divertente e stuzzicante coreografia, munito di grandi e sontuose posate d'oro, che spiccavano sul colore candido del burro". So this is not a legend.

Cheers, Alex2006 (talk) 16:04, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, Alessandro57.

What concerns me about the golden cutlery – a spoon and a fork, to be precise (which are really only props in a potentially fabricated or highly embellished story that we're calling Myth No. 2) is not their existence or the claim that nonno Alfredo occasionally used them to stir the pasta; it is their origin and the inscription. A native English speaker would not write "the King of the noodles" (emphasis is mine), but rather "the King of noodles". (Interestingly, according to our Douglas Fairbanks article, he was know as "The King of Hollywood".) One has to wonder, though as Myth No. 2 is speculative, it will remain here on the Talk page until solid sourcing is found (unlikely).

Re: Myth No. 1, can we agree that the dish called "Fettuccine Alfredo" is essentially Italian-American (notwithstanding the existence of Italian versions called "fettuccine al burro", "pasta al burro e parmigiano", "pasta in bianco", etc.)?

Cheers, Cl3phact0 (talk) 16:55, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Myth 1 as I interpreted it is that Americans widely think that Fettuccine Alfredo is just as popular in Italy as it is in the United States. I see no evidence for that claim. Only a very small percentage of Americans have visited Italy and the vast majority of Americans spend essentially zero time thinking about how often or infrequently Italians eat various dishes in Italy. As for Myth 2, that can be dealt with by attributing the origin story to the marketing statements of the Rome restaurant owners rather than stating any of that in Wikipedia's voice. What I object to is any sort of framing that Italian cuisine is superior to Italian-American cuisine in Wikipedia's voice. That is a violation of the neutral point of view. I also want to make clear that Italian-American restaurants, in my many decades of experience eating in them, do not promote or even mention the golden cutlery/Douglas Fairbanks/Mary Pickford story. That all goes back 100 or more years ago, and the younger generation are barely aware of these big stars of the silent film era. Of the countless Italian-American restaurants I've eaten at, many do not even offer the dish, and of those that do, it is just another item on the menu, without any promotional gimmicks. Also, it is not routinely offered with chicken. Some grilled chicken breast is often offered as an add-on for an extra price. The emphasis on Olive Garden is a bit misleading. Yes, they emphasize Alfredo dishes, but there are as many as 100,000 Italian-American restaurants in the US, and only 900 are Olive Gardens. With the exception of chain pizzerias, most Italian-American restaurants are independent local family owned businesses. The "In American culture" section is especially weak because it focuses heavily on the Italian origins and things that various people said 100 years ago. I venture to guess that 99.99% of Americans are entirely unaware that the Roman dish was mentioned fleetingly in Babbitt, a novel which was published over 100 years ago, and whose premise has been undermined by profound changes in American society in the past 70 years. The first reference in the section is by Forbes contributor John Mariani, who argues vigorously in favor of the original Roman recipe, but that is not at all reflective of the dish in contemporary American culture, and per WP:FORBESCON, there is strong consensus that articles by Forbes contributors are not reliable sources. In conclusion, the article spends far too much time describing the Roman origins and the celebrity gossip of 100 years ago, and far less time describing the dish as it is actually eaten and enjoyed by tens of millions of contemporary Americans. Cullen328 (talk) 18:14, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Some good points here, thank you. It seems that we largely agree that there are improvements to be made. I've got some thoughts on how to implement and will try to find time to give this some further attention at the WE. (Any contemporary American cultural significance and/or recent history input most welcome.) Cheers, Cl3phact0 (talk) 21:37, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Ah, food, I love it.;-) I've traveled around Italy from Venice to Palermo, and ate all the wonderful food I could. I have prepared the Italian-American dish, fettuccine alfredo, hundreds of times, harking back to my salad days when I worked as a sauté chef in a beachside seafood restaurant, not that this gives my opinion any extra weight (it doesn't). Being a seafood restaurant, the restaurant served it with shrimp (gasp, horrors), or without. To accommodate some of the concerns expressed here about the veracity of Alfredo Di Lelio's claims, perhaps the lede could say that it's an "Italian-American, nominally Italian, pasta dish"? Carlstak (talk) 19:50, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Indeed. Food, Glorious Food, no matter how thin the gruel. -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 21:26, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Hallo,Cl3phact0, here my answer:

about myth1: in Italy Fettuccine alfredo is known as an Italo-American food (by the Italians who travel abroad and know it there). The dish in the original version has never spread in Italy because it is a local dish prepared by a Roman restaurant, and the recipe has always been kept secret (even today). It is like the famous ricotta and sour cherry tart from the pasticceria Boccione in the roman ghetto. there are hundreds of recipes on the web that try to imitate it, but none come close to the original.

about myth2: looks like the golden cutlery exists still today, as you can read here (it is an interview to his grand niece).

Generally speaking, I would

• remove the redirect of pasta al burro;
• write an article about the pasta al burro (I think it deserves it, since it is a dish at least 600 years old, and well sourced in renaissance text books);
• move the history of pasta al burro to the new article;
• and describe fettuccine Alfredo as an Italian-American dish with Italian origin (since it was born as a variation of fettuccine al burro).

The recipe has never been secret. Our article gives multiple sources, which all agree. As for the story of the golden cutlery, it is very unclear. First of all, both of the current "Alfredo" restaurants apparently have a set. (So which is the real one?) Secondly, I've read that the originals were given to the Italian government for the war effort. (I can't find the reference right now.). Third, as far as I can tell, all the stories about the cutlery originate with the restaurant itself -- do we have any contemporary evidence from the Pickford/Fairbanks side? Fourth, as someone has pointed out, the English on the cutlery is not idiomatic. Overall, I'd say that the original story might be true (or not), but it is highly unlikely that what is currently being displayed is the original pair. --Macrakis (talk) 15:45, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Cheers, Alex2006 (talk) 10:00, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Got it, thanks. Re: creation of a pasta al burro article, I placed a redlink in the infobox as an aide memoire (my head is full of noodles at this point so I may not get there first, but it's an excellent suggestion). -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 11:12, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

@Cl3phact0: a tip: being fettuccine, in the article it would be more correct to write "fettuccine" and not "noodles". JacktheBrown (talk) 20:13, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

There are a few references that use "Noodles" (lest we forget the famous golden cutlery itself), so there's a good reason for using both in the article – however, above, "noodle" and "head" together make noodlehead (which is how I'm starting to feel down this rabbit hole). -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 20:25, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

The 1925 edition of the Touring Guida Rossa to Italia Centrale by Bertarelli clearly lists the specialty of d'Alfredo as "fettuccine al burro", as does the 1934 edition of Roma e dintorni. This is a very reputable Italian source. A 1981 American source (Fodor's) agrees. They are just very fancy -- and very fancily presented -- fettuccine al burro.

Of course the Olive Garden version is very different and un-Italian. So what? Every dish develops variants with time, some of them felicitous, others not. The version of beef Stroganoff made with Knorr's mix is vastly different from the first version documented by Molokhovets (and it is quite different in Brazil, Sweden, and Japan). Greek salad as served in most US restaurants is vastly different from that served in Greece. Naturally, the articles about these dishes point out the differences between the older versions and the US variants. --Macrakis (talk) 09:24, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

I share your scepticism and have endeavoured to revise the Golden Cutlery aspects of the article in manner which underscores its importance to the overall myth that helped make this dish a worldwide phenomenon (what this article, in rather exquisitely revisionist terms now calls Rome's maggior successo internazionale 'greatest international success'), while also clarifying that it may be just a story (cf. BBC: Spaghetti-Harvest in Ticino). In fact, it's one of the things that caught my interest in the first place (after the resolution of the great Italian vs. Italo-American debate, of course). We're in pretty good shape now. I certainly wouldn't drop it from the article at this point (and am not at all interested in doing this all over again). Cheers, Cl3phact0 (talk) 16:27, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

False information

This dish is American-Italian.

I corrected this information twice, but it has been changed back to Italian and world cuisine.

The dish has its roots in Rome but left its birthplace for the United States.

The dish isn't called differently in Italy; it simply doesn't exist there. IlEssere (talk) 14:50, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

@IlEssere: Thanks for bringing this to the Talk page. If you read through the discussions above and look at the article's edit history, you'll see that achieving the right balance about the question of the dish's origin has been discussed in quite some detail. The current draft reflects a pretty good consensus of the editors who have participated in the discussion and who have made iterative improvements to the text (based on available sources). The claim is only that the dish originated in Rome, spread to the United States and became well-know there (and eventually in other places too – ironically, including some more recent fame in Italy itself); not that it's an Italian classic known throughout Italy and beloved to all. Everything that is written is scrupulously backed-up by reliable sources (some dating back to the 1920s). Please read the article carefully (and review its sources too). Any edits you chose to make should be supported by WP:RS sources. No opinions please. Cheers, Cl3phact0 (talk) 16:01, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

I agree on everything that you mentioned so far, but I think it's more appropriate to state the dish Italian-American instead of of Italian and world cuisine. IlEssere (talk) 16:29, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

I tend agree with you. Others have pointed out that to over-emphasise this was incorrect given the Roman origin story. It was also said by some that our choice of syntax was perhaps implicitly showing prejudice against Americans – intended or not.

In the infobox, we do state that the dish is "associated" with Italian, Italian-American, and world cuisine, which seems fair, and is accurate as reflected by the history and current reality. In the text body, we try to remain neutral and only state the facts (as per our many very good sources). What we have now is quite improved as compared to earlier versions.

Of course, if you can make it better, please do. However, simply expressing opinions without sources to back-up any claims will likely lead to your edits being reverted. -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 18:16, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

If Alfredo is Italian Food, so is McDonald’s Italian dishes?

McDonald's has its own 'Italian' dishes that originated in Italy, and unlike Alfredo, these are served all across Italy. Does that mean McDonald's 'Italian' food is genuinely Italian? While Alfredo sauce has Italian influences and Roman origins, it cannot be considered a traditional Italian dish, just as many McDonald's items can't be genuinely Italian either. IlEssere (talk) 17:39, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Gearing-up for WP:GAN

With a WP:GAN submission in mind, I'm going to go through this article again from top to bottom in an attempt to eliminate any obvious flaws that are likely to be flagged during the review process. May I ask that we please discuss points on which we don't agree here in Talk, rather than engaging in back and forth edits in the article itself? Cheers, Cl3phact0 (talk) 07:00, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

@Cl3phact0: I'm available, what changes would you like to make to the article? JacktheBrown (talk) 16:41, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

Noted. Thanks! For the moment, I'm only focusing on minor syntax, MOS compliance, re-checking all of our sources, and technical details (i.e., formatting, templates, wikitext, etc.) – flaws that are likely to be flagged during the review process. Cheers, Cl3phact0 (talk) 16:58, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

MOS:SERIAL

@Cl3phact0: I think it's a very good idea to add the Oxford comma and make it consistent within the article. JacktheBrown (talk) 17:20, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. I will add serial commas and general consistency to my pre-GAN punch-list. -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 17:27, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

Also, please do add any that I've missed. Cheers Cl3phact0 (talk) 11:59, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

MOS:ENGVAR

Following the recent change of spelling by an ip editor, I note that a {{Use American English}} template was added in June 2024. As so much about this humble subject seems to illicit strong opinions, it seems worth raising the question before putting the article itself before the scrutiny of a WP:GAN: Do we want "Fettuccine Alfredo" written in American or British English? -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 16:34, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

Template:Infobox food

@JacktheBrown: I propose trimming the infobox somewhat so that it covers basic information with as few extra details and wikilinks as possible. As I have attempted this modification in the past, and the fat keeps creeping back, lets discuss the best approach here rather than tacit edit warring in mainspace – which, as we know, will probably spoil any chance of GA promotion (please see #5 here). -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 11:11, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

@Cl3phact0: write to me on my talk page; it's more comfortable for me, if that's not a problem for you. JacktheBrown (talk) 03:57, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Discussion about this article really needs to be done here on its talk page, not at user talk, so others don't have to go searching. Valereee (talk) 19:45, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

@Cl3phact0: answer to "I propose trimming the infobox somewhat so that it covers basic information with as few extra details and wikilinks as possible.": I agree. JacktheBrown (talk) 20:37, 17 October 2024 (UTC)