Italy is well known as one of the most beautiful and visited countries in the world. Millions of tourists from all over the world come to Italy every year to visit its art galleries, the cities, museums and monuments.
There is plenty to see in Italy: natural landscapes, museums, churches, castles, architecture; its cities are among the most beautiful and famous in the world too: Rome, Venice, Florence, Naples, Milan, Palermo, to name a few.
Italy is also famous for its cuisine.
Italian cuisine is well known and made all over the world.
Very often, though, outside Italy there is a mistaken idea of the Italian cuisine. In fact, what is believed to be Italian food is, instead, stereotypical Italian cuisine, rich in fat and low priced ingredients, without balance and the goodness.
It is often associated with slices of very thick pizza covered in melted cheese garnished with slices of salami, or huge pasta dishes drowned in liters of sauce. Lasagnas being produced with substandard products passed off as Italian specialties.
Italian cuisine is intrinsically different. Italian cuisine is made with balance, the best of products, extremely refined and … full of love. It is very important to understand that the Italian cuisine today has increasingly become a business and not an answer to people’s appetites.
Try to stay away from the industrial kitchen, which can be full of fat, salt and low-cost ingredients filled with chemical additives.
To decide what to eat, its imperative to know what to eat. Our aim is to try to introduce you to the best dishes, how they are prepared and which ingredients are being used.
This way, you won’t need to know which restaurants to go to but you will be able to recognise where good food is prepared, recognise it by its smell and its appearance, eat authentically and well and pay the right price.
Being in Italy does not guarantee that you will be eating good quality food everywhere . This is unfortunately Is no longer the case.
It happens more often now that people go to the restaurants or pizzerias and eat industrial or frozen food (bought inexpensively and charged exorbitantly to diners), which is far from the authentic Italian cuisine.
This website aims to popularise Italian gastronomic traditions and culture to tourists in order to convey a “method” that can help them in having the best dining experience possible in Italy.
Wastes money on mediocre quality food, is not the spirit of Italian cuisine, our aim is for people to be able to choose good quality food in a conscious manner. As we all know, the best things are rare and often hidden, and here we will try to show you a method to recognise them.
Great passion for food and attention to detail is required, to be able to taste delicious food.
A good Italian culinary experience cannot be found in the usual tourist hubs.
These places are usually bars or restaurants located close to the famous landmarks and offer visitors a selection of the most famous Italian dishes. In these places you can eat pasta sauce, pizza, seafood, lasagna, ravioli, at very high prices and mediocre quality.
The menus at these restaurants are extensive, usually when a restaurant offers many items on a menu, the dishes are prepared prior to the service and the food is a bit ‘ tired ‘ and is not as delicious as when it is freshly prepared.
In order to try something really authentic, we would like to share with you the essence of Italian cooking.
The two essences are: The Territory (regionalism) and The Tradition.
The Territory:
It is said that Italian cuisine is a territorial cuisine, regional cuisine. Italy has 20 regions, each region has its own products from the land and sea, and its ingredients.
For example in Sicily there are oranges, almonds, eggplant, anchovies; in Calabria, chili; in Naples and Campania mozzarella; in Italy the Parmesan; in Liguria, pesto; in Puglia and Tuscany oil; Piedmont hazelnuts; etc.
The result of this being that every region has their own ingredients and each region has developed their own recipes with these particular ingredients. Each region has recipes that are different from those of the other.
This knowledge is what will make your ordering expereince in a restaurant, a pleasurable one.
For example eating fish in a city that has no sea, will result in expensive dishes which may not be so fresh. The increase in pricing is due to having to source the raw material from the place of origin.
Another example: “pesto” is a delicious paste used in pasta made by mashing basil, oil, pine nuts, parmesan, pecorino cheese and olive oil together in a stone mortar. Pesto is a recipe which is a speciality of Genoa, so much so that its name is pesto alla genovese.
Eating pasta al pesto outside the Liguria region will therefore mean eating a dish not as good as the original version.
Another famous dish worldwide are tortellini’s . Tortellini’s are a type of pasta with meat stuffing from The Emilia region. It is extremely hard to eat them at an acceptable level outside Italy.
It is important to understand that pesto, tortellini and all the other dishes are inextricably linked to the region of origin and to sample in a region other than that of origin is a stretch.
In other words, the tip is not to eat pesto and tortellini in Liguria and in Bologna.
A good dining experience requires a desire to try the local specialties in each of the location.
The Tradition
Italian recipes are popular among the inhabitants and are an integral part of popular culture.
In Italy everyone is great cook and they also believe that what they cook is better than what the neighbor can cook . Every Italian is convinced of this.
Undoubtedly, not all Italians are good cooks, but the truth is that many love to eat and cook and are very familiar with the kitchen and its ingredients.
No one is consciously taught, yet many have the knowledge.
How is this possible?
The answer is Tradition.
Italian cuisine is a cuisine that has been handed down through sharing.
A cuisine made with love.
Children know the recipes of the Italian dishes because they have watched their mothers or grandmothers make it for them. Small children spend much of their time in the kitchen with their mothers and grandmothers, thus, learning through observation.
Being a cuisine of love Italian dishes are made with care and attention.
Italian cuisine is simple, and is not madeinvolving techniques; cooking is similar to oneself and perfected over time.
It is improved and refined from generation to generation.
The kitchen is clean, fresh ingredients are used in a balanced manner; not too much salt, oil or cheese, where everything can be digested well, and the dish giving off a delicate aroma of the fresh ingredients used.
Our goal is for tourists to be able to try all this care that goes into cooking and find what they love to eat in the traditional Italian cuisine.
Let the journey begin and Buon Appetito !
