We're all on the hunt for the authentic, whether it's a dining experience with locals or a meal of undisputed origin. But the inauthentic – those crazy riffs and bizarre knock-offs – can be just as rewarding as the original, says Matt Preston, celebrating ‘Italian fare’ in its weird and wonderful incarnations.

We live in a time when authenticity is praised to the heavens. You haven’t drunk real Guinness unless that pint was made with the waters of the Liffey and sipped in Dublin. You haven’t had pad Thai until you’ve eaten it with Thai gangsters in a night market in Bangkok. You haven’t tried genuine Italian until you’ve slurped the Tuscan bean soup they serve in that bar off the square in Arezzo.

Enough, I say. It’s time for us all to admit that we love proudly inauthentic Italian food, which, for the purposes of exciting the internet beast, I shall call Sh-Italian. This food is daggy but often amazingly tasty, and it exists in every corner of the world. It might be Korea’s mentaiko spaghetti (the chilli cod’s roe creamy from warm butter and Kewpie mayonnaise), or those decadent Chicago deep-dish pizzas that have any self-respecting Neapolitan crying for their mamma. Here, then, are twelve Sh-Italian greats.

Carbonara

Carbonara was not, in fact, made by pre-Garibaldi charcoal makers – it only appeared in Italian cookbooks after World War II, created for the invading GIs using their rations of US eggs and Canadian bacon. It’s a classic example of a Sh-Italian dish – an Italian idea reinterpreted to suit locally available ingredients.

Spaghetti bolognese

Spag bol doesn’t really exist in Italy, yet we love it here. Spaghetti meatballs is another non-Italian invention: it’s from New York. Perhaps famous pastas are like famous chefs of Italian food: more come from outside the country than Italy itself.

Tinned pasta

Italians might sneer, but tell me there isn’t a part of your soul that leaps when you see cans of pasta dinosaurs, letters or hoops. All are better than true Italian classics such as boiled meat (bollito misto) or rolls filled with stinky cow’s intestines (lampredotto).

Funky pestos

You’ll struggle to find pesto made from anything other than basil and pine nuts in Italy. No almond and capsicum; no cashew and sun-dried tomato. Imagine how much poorer life would be?

Gourmet pizza

True Neapolitan pizza is made with an almost monastic approach, and the choice of toppings is equally as austere: no banana, bacon and barbecue sauce, no Mexican or Hawaiian themes.

Fettuccine Alfredo

Fettuccine Alfredo is the king of Sh-Italian pasta. That you could make the sauce in a Nutribullet was one of its big selling points. It’s usually poured over flabby, overcooked green fettuccine, but see below for my delicious twist on this classic.

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.