"From what we cook at home to the restaurants where we dine, Italian food is the world's most popular cuisine. Not so long ago, however, Italian food was regarded as poor man's gruel--little more than pizza, macaroni and sauce, and red wines in a box. Here, John Mariani shows how Italian immigrants to America created, through perseverance and sheer necessity, an Italian-American food culture and how it became a global obsession. He begins with Greek, Roman, and Middle Eastern culinary traditions that existed before the boot-shaped peninsula was even called "Italy," Mariani then takes readers on a journey through Europe and across the ocean to America--alongside the poor but hopeful Italian immigrants who slowly but surely won over the hearts and minds of Americans by way of their stomachs"--Page 2 of cover.