I love the world of social media, communication, and cooking. Above all, I love the cuisine of my home country, Italy. And rightly so, because Italian cuisine—universally recognized as one of the best in the world—has recently been declared an intangible cultural heritage of humanity.

In my opinion, this recognition is unnecessary, obvious, trivial… but nevertheless pleasing to many. I, on the other hand, am totally indifferent: the value of our cuisine certainly does not need UNESCO’s stamp of approval. It is an obvious, well-known, self-evident value.

Despite this, I note with a hint of concern the spread of countless American restaurants and dishes in Italy. As an Italian citizen by birth and an American by naturalization, I find this almost incomprehensible. Why would anyone bite into a lobster roll when they can enjoy a mouthwatering sandwich with ingredients that are either impossible to find or extremely expensive in the rest of the world?

I am thinking of real Parma ham, mortadella from Bologna, and local cured meats which, although they do not have PDO or PGI labels, embody flavors, techniques, and raw materials where authenticity is not an option but the very foundation of their preparation.

I also consider it reductive to extend the recognition of “intangible heritage” to Italian cuisine as a whole. Ours is such a rich, unique, and diverse country that its true wealth lies in its regional, and often municipal, cuisines.

While Gravina uses the so-called “Rùccolo,” the delicious focaccia of San Giuseppe, Altamura — a neighboring city — prepares Pasticcio. Two recipes that are similar in some ways, but profoundly different, just like the dialects that describe them. Extend this argument to the entire peninsula and you will understand how truly unique our country is: a constellation of culinary identities unmatched anywhere else in the world.

So I ask myself: why open a slew of fast food restaurants serving French fries, hamburgers, smashburgers, fried chicken, and lobster rolls?

Was this globalization really necessary?

My answer, as a romantic and perpetually deluded expatriate, is a resounding no.

The extreme irony is that many of these new restaurants call themselves ‘American’ despite the fact that, for a large proportion of Italians — partly due to Trump’s second presidency — the United States is a hated, abusive, and inherently evil country.

Then, however, a “smashburgeria” opens and the lines go around the corner. I find it delusional, but not surprising. If I have understood anything about us Italians, it is that we do not behave rationally, especially when it comes to food.

You risk death threats if you use pancetta instead of guanciale in carbonara… but then everyone queues up for a lobster roll. A sandwich with lobster drenched in butter, which — for goodness’ sake — might make sense once a year, but can never reflect the authenticity of two slices of bread with tomato, good olive oil, and wild oregano.

You don’t even need salt: the flavor comes, or rather came, from real products, which we are losing.

It’s over, my friends. The proponents of this debacle are, Italian people.

Because they are the ones who welcome, applaud, and finance restaurants that offer foods that do not belong to them. Often frozen, often ultra-processed.

America has so much to offer and many dishes are fantastic, but they are certainly not sandwiches, hot dogs and various fried foods. No one in Italy offers a real blueberry pie, or a pecan pie, or Thanksgiving turkey; no one cooks authentic crab cakes or real chicken wings.

America is not just smashburgers and pancakes.

I’m thinking of Cajun cuisine from Louisiana, Texan barbecue where the flavor comes from wood and hours of smoking; I’m thinking of soul food from the Southern States, fusion cuisine from Hawaii.

America also has its own culinary excellence: less numerous than italian ones, of course, but real nonetheless. And it certainly doesn’t coincide with what some entrepreneurs hungry for money sell in Italy as “American food.”

In a world rushing towards standardization, Italian cuisine remains the last true bastion of Italianidentity: not a brand, not a label, but a living heritage made up of hands, dialects, memories, and small differences that change from city to city.

If Italians continue to chase fads that do not belong to them, they risk losing what is most precious to them: their authenticity.

And that, unlike smashburger joints, cannot be reopened.