Fancy Store-Bought Dirt

I've known of tiramisu since about 1992, when (to my perception) it suddenly seemed to become popular and appear on dessert menus.

I associate it with the restaurant Mi Piace in Pasadena... That was the first place that I had it; it may or may not have been the first place that I heard of it.

I assume you're talking about the mention of tiramisu in Sleepless in Seattle? Or did it crop up somewhere else that I missed?

As for familiarity, it's even money that my initial encounter was either (a) on a cooking show, or (b) having it at a restaurant. I tend to associate it with Vinny Testa's (now Vinny T's), given the floor tile-sized slabs they serve up.

I'm fairly certain I first saw it in a restaurant menu, but I'll be damned if I know which one. My guess is Olive Garden since when I was young my parents liked to go there and I seem to remember fancying escargot on the appetizer list (gone now or was that a different restaurant). They also had one of those differently shaped video games where you have two people sitting down and looking at a table surface. I want to say they had Pac-Man in that format.

4. First heard of it in 1998 at some restaurant in far north Dallas (I don't remember the name; I went only because I won dinner for four).

7. People just started talking about it in the early 1990s. I personally think it was invented around that time as nobody I know with an Italian grandmother remembers hearing of this dish or eating it at her house.

"People just started talking about it in the early 1990s" and "1992, when (to my perception) it suddenly seemed to become popular" both seem to vindicate my Sleepless in Seattle theory. (Sleepless in Seattle came out in 1993, though 70% of the time a statement like Richard's literally means more like "1992 give or take a year.")

I never heard of it until the Olive Garden came to Tulsa (Late 80's - went there the first time with Sonya and baby Trevor in Dec. '89) It was definitely on their menu then, and the waitstaff really hyped it. I don't recall seeing it in Italy.

I haven't seen Sleepless in Seattle, but judging by the IMDB movie quotes, it seems to me that the scriptwriters thought two things: (1) that a good chunk of the movie's audience, at least the au courant women, would already know what tiramisu was; (2) however, a somewhat-out-of-touch man might not be expected to have heard of tiramisu yet.

Otherwise the quoted line about tiramisu wouldn't be funny / resonate with the audience.

Being of a younger generation and have known of the desert tiramisu nearly my entire life, I thought the reference of it in Sleepless was sexual. Guess I was wrong.