Italians are white in Europe let's not bring weird American racial ideas into this. Americans don't even think the Spanish are white

whiteness is a made up concept of course but generally it has always included everyone in Europe with the exception of the Roma and other marginal groups and can more or less be defined as "of European ethnic origin"

There also isn't a shared culinary tradition. Italian food and Scandinavian food are very different more so than Italian and North African food