Italian American or American Italian

Yesterday, we be began learning the names of food in my Italian class. Turns out a lot of food that most people think is Italian is not. Instead, a few of our so called Italian meals are actually American Italian. First of all, my professor stated that Italians never mix their pasta with some type of meat. So chicken alfredo is out as an actual Italian cuisine and so is spaghetti and meatballs and chicken parmigiana, which is just supposed to be made with eggplant. Italians might put a white cream sauce on their pasta but they would never put chicken on top of it. Meatballs would be served as a side to the spaghetti rather than on top of it. I guess it was the American concept of Italian foods to add meat to everything. My professor also stated that an Italian writer who lived in the states for a while thought it was basically a sin to put meat and pasta in the same dish. We Americans are simply thinking it's Italian when actual Italians have nothing to do with it. Garlic bread is not even Italian. In Italy, they have bread and they have garlic but never garlic bread, another American Italian food. Our professor also told us that Italians rarely eat bread with their pasta because both bread and pasta have a lot of carbohydrates. I understand that, but don't most "Italian" restaurants serve you bread with your meal? Americans have basically taken food from other cultures and made it their own.