Yes it’s quite novel. Most national identities and stereotypes are from the latter half of the nineteenth century. Read Eric Hobsbawns ‘the invention of tradition’’ for example.

The Italian cuisine and it’s staples are very much a construction from the post war period, look at the history of the spaghetti carbonara, which was wiped up by an American army cook, but was later elevated to an supposedly ‘ancient’ recipe.

But before the era of nationalism most people didn’t think in terms of nations and national stereotypes.