Food and foodways are one of the main means of ethnic self-identification in the USA, to the point that it overshadows other ethnic signifiers such as religion and sense of community in younger Italian Americans, thus enforcing the stereotypes about Italian-American identity.
The word ‘macaroni’ was used to label Italian-American immigrants, reducing them to pasta-eating figurines, setting them further apart from other ethnic groups and erasing more complex aspects of their own identity. The denigration of Italian foodways was one of the first forms of xenophobia experienced by the Italian-American community, and it was one of the factors contributing to the strengthening of the ties inside the community itself.
After a brief overview on the eating habits of Italian immigrants during the 20th Century, the essay provides an account of the role of food in the representation of Italian-Americans in the American cinema of the 1990s with a keener interest in the movies "Big Night", "The Godfather Part III", "Analyze This" and "Jungle Fever".
