What is 'old-school' Italian cooking?

Question

We hear the term so often. Where did it get started? How do you define it? Is it a knock, or a compliment? Is it a kitchen that uses a lot of red sauce? Is it an Italian-American restaurant in the 'old neighborhood' with 'old-fashioned' décor? How about Parmigiana? Spiedini? Braciole? What exactly is 'old school' as it applies to the Italian kitchen? How does it differ from 'modern' Italian cooking? I know, a lot of questions...please share your understanding.

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I usually say "Old School Italian Red Gravy" restaurant or food. So I guess I am saying Italian American food. It's old school in that it was the only Italian you'd get until relatively recently. I don't think of it as a knock or a compliment, just a way to differentiate it from the more regional and authentic Italian restaurants we have now. Even recipes that may exist in Italy are often Americanized due to the previous limited availability of more Italian ingredients. 
Now you only need 49 more people to chime in : )

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To me it evokes what I refer to as "red sauce Italian." The mainstays are spaghetti, ziti, lasagna, manicotti, and chicken Parm. They all employ similar red sauce and are usually accompanied by garlic bread and a salad, usually chopped iceburg with red onion, tomato, pepperoncini, and, if you are lucky, olives, dressed with Italian. In the old days dessert was a scoop of spumoni. It is a wonderful comfort food genre and if made well can be truly delicious.

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Also, while I agree that it mostly refers to a southern Italian-centric (tomato, pasta, seafood) oriented cuisine, I'll also add less obvious characteristics like adopting pasta (often with meat sauces) as a "main course", and a shift away from the traditional "Italian from Italy" style of meal, in which pretty much every "part" of the meal was/is served as its own "course"...

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Southern Italian tomato based dishes; Americanized with greater access to beef and chicken.

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I assume this would be an American expression as applied to Italian cooking, as I've not heard it here in Europe.

I would usually associate the use of "old school" as meaning "traditional" in the contexts where I have heard it. So, I suppose that, in the cuisine context, it's suggesting that "old school" will be traditional recipes, differentiating it from a more modern interpretation of a cuisine (often lighter, or drawing on a wider range of ingredients). In my own country "Modern British" food would have its links to traditional ingredients but the dish has been reworked for the modern palate. I believe that, on the western side of the Atlantic, the term would be "New American" cuisine.

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Porridge, and dormice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Roman_cuisine

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This past year I was fortunate to be invited to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of Mario's Restaurant on Arthur Ave., considered the 'Little Italy' of the Bronx, N.Y. The restaurant ownership is in their 5th generation now, and the menu has not changed much over the years. Hearty dishes you would not find in 'contemporary Italian' eateries right down to the potato croquettes. Used to dine there as a kid. A classic 'red sauce' joint to the hilt. And darn good, too. Forgettaboutit! www.mariosarthurave.com

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I'm almost 70 and I grew up in Stamford, CT a suburban NYC community with a large Italian American population. Until the mid 1980's we only had "red sauce" Italian restaurants, (every menu with the same 10-15 entrees) then slowly at first more upscale Italian restaurants featuring cuisines from the North and other regions using more varied ingredients, veal and lamb chops, house made pasta, pesto, cream, better seafood offerings, artisan pizza etc. The first few that opened were very popular with no reservations accepted and long lines of eager diners. Now they are ubiquitous and red sauce restaurants are harder to find.

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To me, it's slow food -- giant meatballs made w/ pork, veal and red meat w/ pecorino and bread soaked in milk, fried and then cooked in sauce or gravy, salad w/ oil and vinegar, bread at every meal to mop sauce with, bowl of cheese, 20 million courses, meat, fish, chicken, pasta, pizza with nothing but black pepper, cheese and oil, plate of cookies and ice cream at the end.

Red sauce joints are linguine with clams and white wine w/ a bowl for the shells, ziti, alfredo (still my favorite), shaker of cheese, entree with a side of spaghetti with sauce, no meatballs, squid salad, some sort of baked clams, oreganata or casino and spumoni or ice cream cake.

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I know some of the old school Italian cooking 
1. SICILIAN STUFFED ARTICHOKES WITH PARMESAN AND GARLIC Á LA FLORENCE CIPOLLA
2. OUTSTANDING OSSO BUCO

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Enjoyed two versions of Lasagna recently: prepared with a béchamel sauce, or with an herbal red sauce? Which style is more 'old school'? Both were very tasty, by the way...

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I just ate at Franco's Italian Bistro in the Baltimore area, and I think it defines a specific experience I will call, for lack of a better term, First Generation Italian American. 

I live in DC where we have cuisines represented from all over the world, and this is what passes for exotic. In Baltimore, it's probably typical of a lot of places: I had a bowl full of thick spinach ravioli stuffed with mushroom pieces in a wine gravy with about three cups of fat mushroom slices on top. 

 In DC we have high-end Italian and we have red sauce chicken parm and spaghetti places. But there is a kind of place that I see a lot of in Philly, Baltimore, and other cities that identify a large Italian-American community. Past and/or present. 

It's a type of cooking that I don't have regular access to where I live. I am only slightly interested in the expensive stuff, and I have zero interest in going out for spaghetti, etc.

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Sat down to a wonderful 'old school' Italian feast at a local Italian-American eatery. Baked Stuffed Clams, Spiedini oozing with cheese and anchovy sauce, and a Meat Lasagna. Gotta have it on occasion. We shared, and it was really good...

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I skimmed this thread, so maybe I missed something, but Italy wasn’t Italy until about 160 years ago, and arguably even then it wasn’t until after WWII that things changed substantially. “Italian” as a language is a northern concept, like “French” is from isle de France. Growing up and thinking of Italy as a country vs what I was used to in the U.S. and then actually going to Italy were very different things. I remember being shocked at the lack of homogeneity in European countries compared to America. I speak French, why do I understand nothing in Corsica? Because they speak Corse. In school I was taught that Italy, France, Germany etc were each distinct places, they aren’t, they are each many places and sometimes they overlap.
TL;DR the fats, starches, and proteins are wildly different across an area as diverse as Italy, Italian cooking is extremely regional, as is much cooking in Europe. Then add in the Italian-American experience and it gets quite complicated very quickly.

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Grew up in the SF Bay Area where there were lots of perhaps "old school" Italian restaurants - which indeed were the red sauce everything type of places -soup, pasta, entree, red sauce missing only on the spumoni ice cream and the carrot stick and celery "antipasto" tray. But always there was dim lighting, a candle dripping from a straw covered wine jug, red and white checkered table cloths and sawdust on the floor. 

Later lived in Italy for several years in the late 1960's and never once ever saw those American Italian requisites . 

Just the opposite - every restaurant we peeked at from the street had starched white linens, glittering stemware, polished heavy cutlery and a theatric black tie wait staff. 

We about starved our first few weeks since we assumed they must be way too expensive for our meager budget. Thus we existed on bar food packaged "tosti's" until we got the courage to walk in the door of those far more formal "Italian" restaurants and also learned by law they were required to offer a fixed menu, set price daily special. 

So what exactly is "old school" Italian? What I learned in Italy, is there is really no "Italian" cuisine really - just incredibly fresh, in season, and flavorful ingredients simply prepared and never overshadowed by anything that hides the original pure flavors. Just different regional cooking techniques and available ingredients. So many wonderful memories from our exploration from tip to top. 

When we returned to the US, friends just "knew' we would love their favorite Italian restaurant - where we were forced to dine yet again on ...... red sauce everything and chianti. (

This was the 1970's. -when did "Northern Italian restaurants start showing up - and the red sauce -Neapolitan immigrant food - ended up relegated to the frozen food section?

 (Heck I can remember when "pizza" first came to the west coast suburbs as the new hit novelty food for teenagers - 1960's We couldn't find " real pizza" in italy in the 1960's either - not the way we got to know it in the US at that time. Now Italy has their pizza chains too, cranking out the good US stuff..

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I don’t know what “old-school” means here, but if you want a cookbook of traditional Italian family recipes, consider The Romagnolis’ Table (1974).

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That depends on whose Italian kitchen, where you are, and your age. Lol. To me, Old School means traditional. In some circles, old-fashioned. 

I can no longer find the traditional, or old school if you will, dishes I loved served in Italian kitchens like veal scallopini, veal cannelloni, veal parmesan, tartufo, spumoni. I miss Chianti bottles hanging from the ceiling and red and white checkered tablecloths. Perhaps they are considered old school, or may have fallen out of fashion over the years.

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Making probably the second most popular "Old School" entree today for lunch, Chicken Parmigiana, I would assume Spaghetti and Meatballs would be #1.

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One of our local Italian restaurants prepares a wonderful, hearty Rabbit Cacciatore. Heard it was on the menu again as a special. Must have it! 'Old School' for sure...

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What is 'old-school' Italian cooking?

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