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The Italians are especially fond of
pasta asciutta (an unending variety of dried noodles),
the huge assortment of hot and cold appetizers known as
antipasti; sausage and salami; gelati e granite, ice
creams and ices; and caffè espresso, coffee made by
forcing steam through the coffee
grounds.
Italy, like France or China, has many
culinary regions, but basically the north’s staple is
rice and butter and the south lives on pasta and cooks
with olive oil. Cooking techniques are less important
than the quality of the raw
ingredients.
Bologna’s rich cooking is perhaps the
best of the northern cuisine with its famed tagliatelle,
tortellini, and other freshly made noodle preparations,
egg pastas, sausages, and complex main courses. Piedmont
supplies many of the finest chefs to the luxury
restaurants around the world. Its local white truffles
and Fontina cheese are the base for their fonduta, the
famous hot melted cheese casserole eaten with bread
bits.
Lombardy cooks exclusively with
butter, replacing the pasta with rice and cornmeal
polenta, and blends successfully the cooking style of
several of the northern provinces. Genoese cooking’s
most characteristic flavour comes from the use of basil
leaves pounded into a sauce called pesto together with
cheese, garlic, pine nuts, and olive oil. Florence is
famous for its Chianina beef cattle that provide the
meat for its bistecca alla Fiorentina.
Alla Romana-type cooking produces the
best gnocchi, calamaretti (baby squid), abbacchio (young
lamb, usually roasted with rosemary), and vegetable
preparations. The cooking of Naples represents the best
gastronomy of southern Italy with the use of pasta,
crusty white bread, robust tomato sauces, mozzarella,
and other types of cheese. Generally speaking, the
availability of some of the finest vegetables and fruits
of Europe and of fine seafood, and the array and liberal
use of fresh herbs, create the best moments of the
Italian
gastronomy.
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