Italian Food and Recipes

Italian Food and Recipes

Up until about 150 years ago, Italy was divided into twenty-seven separate regions. Each region developed its own traditions, dialect and dishes. When we talk about Italian cuisine, we are actually talking about twenty-seven separate cuisines! For example, there are Sicilian dishes, which were popular during the Roman Empire and the culinary traditions of the Bay of Naples, where seafarers brought new ingredients and the use of tomatoes and pizza was pioneered. In Lombardy, people ate hardly any pasta, but rather polenta, while in rolling Tuscany they became masters of making delicious bread.
Ask an Italian where he comes from, and he does not say: Italy, but the name of his native region, or even the exact village. Italians are proud of their origins. No wonder every Italian knows exactly why his pasta is tastier than that of the next village. What seems like a small difference to us is the product of a long history. If you try to dissect the popularity of Italian food, you will come across a trio of secrets. First of all, Italian cuisine is blessed with ingredients that are relatively easy to eat: subtle flavours, lots of carbohydrates that create a lasting feeling of fullness and fresh produce.
Secondly, the average Italian dish is easy to prepare, even with non-Italian ingredients, and easy to adapt to circumstances. Wheat flour, water and salt (as the basis for both pasta and pizza) can be found everywhere and while you may not find guanciale (cheek bacon from Italian pigs) in your carbonara, a piece of English streaky bacon will be fine.
Thirdly, the Italians have two major moments of mass migration behind them: in the decades before the first world war, and immediately after the second world war. As Italians moved into the wide world, their eating habits spread quickly and widely, to all corners of the globe.
Italian cuisine
Real Lasagna Soup
This incredible lasagna soup tastes exactly like a really good lasagna, but is a very rich, very meaty tomato soup. The little bit of extra work you'll do—precooking the noodles, then baking them in the oven—is absolutely worth the time and effort. The buttery, baked, and toasted noodles that are then added to the soup make this absolutely phenomenal.