Are you spending Christmas in Italy? Let me give you a friendly advice: eat lightly on Christmas’ Eve or you won’t survive Christmas lunch. This is serious, I’m not jocking. Let me give you an example of how an Italian mind can work when you use the words Christmas and food on the same sentence. …
italian food
Valsesian Christmas markets – traditional products
Christmas is approaching and in many European countries it’s time for Christmas markets. Christmas markets are street markets organized during the four weeks of Advent. This tradition seems to date back at least to 1434 in Dresden, Germany. The first Christmas markets in Italy, instead, began to spread only towards the end of 1900. I …
Happy hour or aperitivo? – Italian customs
Are you planning a low budget holiday in Italy? Then, aperitivo and happy hour might come in handy. But what are aperitivo and happy hour? APERITIVO The idea of aperitivo in Italy dates back to 1784, when Antonio Benedetto Carpano invented Vermouth, a drink made of white wine aromatized with more than 30 different spices …
Authentic Italian pizza – history, curiosities, and recipes
Pizza is the most famous Italian dish in the world. But what are the origins of this deliciousness? The first documented usage of the word pizza dates back to 997 AD. At that time, pizza was slightly different from the one everybody knows. In fact, it was a simple flatbread either with no topping, or …
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How to recognize fake Italian food (Part 2)
In How to recognize fake Italian food (Part 1), I explained how to spot real Italian food from quality labels. Today, I want to focus, instead, on how to recognize authentic Italian food just looking at traditional food labels. When Italians go to supermarkets they generally prefer buying products that have been produced, processed and …
