Normal meat

Sh-Italian never uses cute little foals or venerable donkeys for their crudo or their salami (like they do in Northern Italy), but instead it uses sensible meats like chicken for Sh-Italian classics like creamy chicken and warm avocado pasta. I don’t think I’ve ever seen chicken on a pizza or in a pasta in Italy. Doesn’t that strike you as a little weird.

No chalky frog risotto

According to the greatest Italian chef, Gualtiero Marchesi, risotto is rice that is still a little chalky and undercooked in the middle. Oh, and it should be cooked in salted water, not stock. That’s not the Sh-Italian way; that risotto is oozy and creamy and – possibly, reassuringly, comfortingly – a little overcooked. And while Italians do their risottos in questionable flavours like saffron and bone marrow (Milan), liver (Veneto), snails and chocolate, or frog (both Piedmont), our bastardised risottos come in delicious flavours like curried squid and coconut or Thai chilli tuna. Well, according to my 1996 copy of Tamara Milstein’s Risotto ’Round the World they do!

Al dente, the way we like it   

Look, I like a little resistance in my pasta or rice, but in Italy, al dente can mean crunchy spaghetti. I mean, it’s “to the tooth” not “through the tooth”. You’ll never find that in a sh-Italian pasta dish, so your fragile gnashers are safe.

No sun-dried tomatoes

No one likes overly sun-dried tomatoes, which have all the attraction of desiccated severed ears. Sure, Italians love a roast tomato on their antipasto platter, and grow amazing tomatoes in the volcanic soils around Vesuvius and Etna, but here we have semi-sun-dried tomatoes that are delicious in a pasta, a pesto or a dip. You won’t find them in Italy, but you will find them in your local supermarket. A bit like buttery garlic bread, chicken parma or pizza-flavoured Shapes – three other un-Italian, Italian-flavoured treats!

Far less rules

In Italy, a latte is for breakfast and a cappuccino is never ordered with meals. It’s frowned on to eat an ice cream before 11am, and you are a barbarian if you eat eggs for breakfast or put parmesan on your seafood pasta. With sh-Italian, you are free to load cheese (even Tasty) on your prawn linguini and have a latte to finish the meal without being sneered at.

The desserts

True Italian desserts tend to be cakey or bakey, whereas outside the motherland they have become things of great beauty. Delicious orange gelato frozen in a hollowed-out orange; Baci ice cream sundaes; tiramisu in all manner of hues; ricotta cheesecakes. Sh-Italian desserts are not just zuppa Inglese, budino or something that would look more at home in a pastry display.