Italian Cuisine

Rooted in the most ancient of Mediterranean cultures

Italian cuisine, once rated as a poor cousin to French fare, has now emerged as the preeminent force in world gastronomy: it's healthy in that it is olive-oil rather than butter-based; it relies heavily on the use of fish, fresh vegetables, and fruit; and visual excitement is a result of the natural colour from the ingredients themselves.

It is infinitely varied owing to the very many regional differences and the sheer variety of raw materials used.

And, since it's simple, anyone can talk about it with great confidence and you don't have to be a gourmet to enjoy it.

History has shown us that where there exists a great civilization, there's a great cuisine—and this is especially true of Italy. Italian cuisine has roots in the most ancient of Mediterranean cultures, that of Italy's first-known inhabitants, the Etruscans. They developed a highly artistic culture and an amazingly advanced agriculture: many layers of influence followed as the result of invasions by the Roman and Phoenicians as well as the Saracens, the French, and the Spanish.

For centuries, there was a marked difference between what the wealthy ate and what was eaten by the poor. Meat eating was, until modern times, just about completely reserved for the privileged few while the peasant class with its close connection to the earth, had access to vegetables and fruit as well as the wild food of the forests, lakes and sea. And so it was that, even with comparatively meagre resources, the peasants developed rich cooking traditions.

At the other end of the scale, new foods and cuisine ideas were being slowly introduced through the courts and the religious communities with their much higher educational level and international connections.

However, at the time of the Renaissance, it was the middle class—with their concern for quality rather than quantity—that brought together the cuccina ricca ("rich kitchen") and the cuccina povera ("poor kitchen") based on a common reliance on local resources.

Over the centuries; it has slowly evolved and finally blossomed into what we have come to know as classic Italian cuisine: a magnificent embroidery of diverse cultural and economic influences.

Perhaps because Italy only became a nation in 1870, even now every region, city or village is richly unique, and this diversity is reflected in the cuisine: each province and city has its own shaped pasta, its quite special breads and pastries, and its own selection of recipes.

Italian civilization and cuisine started in Tuscany, an ancient land with olive oil, wheat and vine where the cooking is uncomplicated and natural, lavish in its use of raw materials, but basically simple its preparation. It tends to rely heavily on bread and pasta, vegetables and seasonal fruit, very high-quality cheeses, meat and olive oil: the westernmost provinces look towards the sea for many of the dishes; the bistecca alla fiorentina, a rib of fine Chianini beef, has been a highlight for over a hundred years – it is tender and lower in cholesterol than other beef; fagioli are so widely appreciated that Tuscans were given the nickname of "bean eaters".

The culinary traditions of Umbria province are linked to the mountains and valleys that dominate the landscape: the cooking – based on this region's superior olive oil – is honest and simple, being flavoured with local herbs, especially marjoram, fennel and rosemary.

The main feature of the cuisine is the bountiful use of both domesticated and wild meat: beef, pork, kid, veal and baby lamb – raised naturally on a diet of grasses, wild thyme and sage; hare, capon and many species of wild game birds; river fish, mostly giant carp and trout, vary the menu. Umbria has the finest prosciutti (hams) and both dried and fresh sausages, produces several local pasta specialities – whole wheat cariole alla ternana and a handmade umbricci—and boasts wild mushrooms as well as five varieties of truffles that include the black truffle used generously in many dishes such as risotto.

The cuisine of Campania is heavily influenced by the tomato which thrives in the volcanic soil during the long, very hot summers, and an inordinate appetite for cheeses, including the silky mozzarella from buffalo milk and the creamy scamorza and macaroni. The exodus of the many immigrants from Naples has made the region's dishes famous worldwide, especially the pasta and pizza.

Ligurian cuisine is considered by Italians to be the most inventive: a great variety of sea foods are counterbalanced by some complex salads and the widespread use of the wild porcini and ovoli mushrooms; ravioli filled with everything from ricotta to pumpkin, fish or sweet breads is another of the specialities; herbs growing wild on the Ligurian slopes are used lavishly; and pesto, a heady basil source is served with noodles and the soup invented by the Genovese, minestrone.

Finally, the cuisine from Venice and Veneto reflects a rich and extravagant past in that it is refined with a touch of the exotic: sweet and sour, based on spices from the East. Meat is not overshadowed by a love of fish, but rice, polenta, beans and salt cod, baccala, dominate; pasta is not really used a great deal except, of course, for gnocchi.

Each region has its own specialities, but they all borrow from each other to a certain extent: it is precisely that which further contributes to the diversity one sees both on the table and in the markets for which Italy is famous.

Finally, it should not be forgotten that, whilst Italy has some wonderful and renowned restaurants with international status, for the most part, the really good Italian food is found where it all began, in the home.