Follow Business Insider: When Americans think of Italian food, they tend to think of pepperoni pizza, garlic bread, and chicken Parmesan. But all of those dishes are actually Italian-American hybrid foods created by Italian immigrants who were cooking with U.S. ingredients.In other words, what we think of as âclassic Italianâ is not actually from Italy at all.Sunday Gravyâ was something many Italian-American children grew up with. Families would throw all kinds of meat into a pot and and let it simmer with tomato sauce, onions, garlic, and bit of olive oil. The resulting meat sauce is very similar to both Neapolitan ragu ragÃ¹ and bolognese. sauce