Food in Italy
In the United States, we eat lots of Italian food. This has been influenced by Italy and their cuisine. People from other countries that came to Italy brought corn, potatoes, and tomatoes. In Naples, Italy during the 1700s, tomatoes were used, but the Italians thought the tomatoes were poisonous and used them for decoration. Poor Italians started using these tomatoes for their food to make it taste better.
In Italy they use butter and olive oil to change the tastes in their food. In northern Italy, the weather is cool so you can farm better. Because of this, Italians there use more butter because they have better dairy farms. In the southern Italy the weather is warmer and lots of olive trees grow there so they use a lot of olive oil in their cooking.
The two things that Italians have to consider when cooking is cost and ease. Pasta and rice are two staple ingredients that are inexpensive and fill you up. This way the people don’t have to buy more food and won’t cost as much. That is important because these are people don’t have a lot of money. Meat in Italy is very expensive so they cut it up in thin slices. It is rare to serve big amounts of meat.
Italians use fresh ingredients to make their food so they shop every day for fresh food. There usually isn’t much left over from a meal because they put the exact amount of what they need. Texture and color are very important things to Italian cooks. It is important because they like to have the colors of their vegetables bright. Pizza has 3 Italian colors of the flag basil, tomato, and mozzarella green, red, and white.
Pasta is very popular in Italy. Veal, which is a small calf, is eaten often because they don’t often have enough food to make it into a bigger cow. Seafood for Italians is common because Italy is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea. Vegetables sometimes are the main dish for dinner. Dinner is usually served with wine and ends with fresh fruit. Herbs are usually mixed in with their food.
