One of the most beautiful aspects of Italian cooking is its sheer variety.
Instead of pizza and pasta - think piadina, risotto, canederli and spätzle, depending on the region.
Outside of Italy, we easily assume it's all garlic and oregano, carbs and creams, but get stuck into into the true soul of Italian cooking and you'll notice a rich diversity proudly rooted in every region.
Paging through the recipes in our cookbook 'Appetito', we're reading up on food culture in Italy as much as the classic and quirky recipes that feature. We're looking at where dishes originate, how they're embedded in a region and the celebrations around them. Food is never 'just food' in a country that places an immense proportion of time and value on the table. Just as dishes 'belong' to an area, sometimes specifically to a village, ingredients become the pride of territory, heritage and history explaining why it's an 'insult' to overcook Italian pasta because it's been so lovingly made!
Starting in the north:
Alto Adige - Bolzano
The bustling commercial and cultural centre of Italy's most northern territory, Alto Adige, enjoys regional food you can count on finding at markets, on menus and in homes. The air you breathe seems Austrian because Bolzano once belonged to Austria and the food here reflects this. Wild Alpine herbs and field flowers are sprinkled into sauces or chopped into canederli, breads are made of rye and fennel seeds, cakes are made from buckwheat. You'll find sausages and cabbage and spätzle gnocchetti, würstel sellers in town, creamy mountain cheeses and fruit strudels as parts of this beautiful, wholesome cuisine:
Canederli bead dumplings flavoured with porcini, beetroot or spinach
Tyrolean cabbage salad with cumin and slivers of Speck
Spinach spätzle gnocchetti in a creamy sauce flavoured with Speck
Heading south, we encounter
Veneto - Venice
A city that is close to our hearts, is also close to our house so the food of this region is what we serve up most. It must be said that Venice itself has very particular plates featuring lagoon and Carnival food we look forward to only here, it also has a very recognisable dialect. You'll struggle to find the likes of schie con polenta, grey, lagoon prawns on polenta, or fritole col buso, circular Carnival fritters, anywhere but on the island.
Making the most of what the sea offers up, there's squid ink risotto, moscardini octopus and baccalà mantecato whipped stockfish cream as what have now become sought-after gourmet delights with their origins deeply rooted in cucina povera. This beautiful octopus salad is not specifically Venetian but adored throughout the region of Veneto, a land famous for its risotto, radicchio, tiramisù and prosecco:
Traditional beef meatballs (polpette) found in the bacari of Venice as a casual cicchetto snack
Venetian fritole Carnival fritters made with sultanas and dusted in sugar
Warm octopus salad with tomato, potato and parsley
Bordering Veneto and stretching almost east to west, we find
Emilia Romagna - Bologna
Fondly called 'Foodie Capital', this city packs quite a number of steady staples into its cooking journals, indeed, the whole region does. When recipes are internationally famous and in need of geographical protection, the mighty Camera di Commercio steps in. We can picture the bolognesi people breathing a collective sigh of relief in 1974 when the Brotherhood of the Tortellino 'deposited' their city's eternal recipe into the Bologna Chamber of Commerce for no-one to alter. The tortellino recipe is there for all to see with wonderfully precise instructions on what ingredients to use stating only 'real' Bologna mortadella for the filling and a 'farmyard' hen for the broth. I especially love the first sentence of the official 'Method': 'Deve essere molto accurata. Il lombo va tenuto in riposo per 2 giorni...' You must be very accurate. The loin must rest for 2 days...
Tagliatelle with traditional ragù alla bolognese
Prosciutto di Parma as an antipasto wrapped around slices of melon during the summer months
Sharing Emilia Romagna's southern border is the region of
Tuscany - Florence
One of the most vibrant food memories I have from Italy happened the first year I moved there, the year 2000. Perhaps, the facts I was travelling alone, could hardly speak Italian and was discovering a country I'd never anticipated living in, contributed to a sensory recollection as clear as if it was yesterday. It was Volterra on a blue-sky day, a cobbled winding road just inside the Etruscan city gate. A tiny trattoria and wobbly table for one with glass of Tuscan 'red' and tomato bruschetta. Tuscan bread has no salt in an act of defiance against taxes once placed on the prized condiment, so, the flavours of olive oil, garlic, tomato and basil compellingly combine to create one of Italy's simplest but most flavourful of delicacies, la bruschetta. In a region where warming soups, prized cuts, wild boar and bowls of meaty stews pair with bold wines we all know and love, it feels almost 'ancient' eating around here:
Tomato and garlic Tuscan bruschetta
Tagliata sliced beef steak served on a bed of rocket with shavings of Parmigiano Reggiano
Lazio - Rome
From North to South, we get stuck in the middle. People often ask me to name a favourite region food-wise and every time I say something different because I struggle to choose. However, if I was to be stranded on a desert food island in the form of a city, it would be Rome. Just the thought of a plate of Roman pasta, porchetta or a deep-fried artichoke sways my vote - big city, big legacy, big flavours. Around here, there's no messing around when it comes to food, if you're having pasta, make it memorable, if it's meat, pack it with flavour whether it's tripe, offal or oxtail and never a small portion per favore.
Spaghetti alla carbonara Romana with egg yolk and guanciale cured pork cheek
Bucatini all'Amatriciana - hollow pasta with a rich tomato, guanciale sauce
On our journey south, bordering Lazio is
Campania - Procida, Capri & Napoli
I could ramble on about Naples and mention recipes from my book but this one tiny island in the Gulf must equally be spotlighted and I do like to shout out the little guys. This 'piccolina' is Procida. The pastel, postcard island boasts a gorgeous pesto recipe that's a flavourful as it is simple - Procida Lemon Pesto. If you love the 'quirky', a quick mash (or whizz) of organic lemons, pine nuts, herbs and parmigiano is all it takes for your spaghetti or gnocchi to sing. Campania tastes of Mediterranean citrus, fruits of the sea and San Marzano tomatoes. Find capers, olives, flaky pastries and creamy buffalo mozzarella in a region as beautiful as it is abundant:
'Parmigiana' layers of aubergine, mozzarella, basil and San Marzano tomatoes
Procida pesto made with Lemons, garlic, parsley, basil, pine nuts and olive oil
Almond, chocolate Torta Caprese from the Isle of Capri
Puglia - Bari
We get to the heel of the boot and it's pulses, breads, soups and seafood. This is a cuisine I adore, but I guess that's not saying much. To cook pugliese is to celebrate the season and what's abundant around you. This region of resourceful farmers have taken unwanted vegetable stalks and made them sublime; they look at olive oil as a key ingredient, create creamy soups from humble pulses and frisa bread from grains. To me, Puglia is the embodiment of 'simple being sublime'.
Fava bean 'crema' with garlic, chicory leaves
Focaccia Barese made with potato and scattered tomatoes and olives
Orecchiette traditional pasta with broccoli rabe, anchovies and garlic
If you enjoyed our journey from north to south exploring the culinary diversity of Italy and would like to bring these beauties to your table, you can find the recipes in our new book 'Appetito' available from retailers in England, Europe and launching in America on 27th January.
Always support indie where you can, purchasing from Bookshop.org or your local bookshop who'll happily order a copy in for you while you chat about how wonderful Italian cooking is...
Don't you agree?
Buon appetito e buona cucina!
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