Tripe Italy’s ‘Love It or Hate It’ Ingredient Tripe – trippa in Italian – is the edible lining of a cow’s stomach. It is one of the most used ingredients in Italian offal cooking, appearing in some form in almost every region of the country. It is also…
Friuli’s Habsburg Food The Food that Survived an Empire Friuli’s Habsburg food tradition contains dishes that have almost nothing to do with Italy. Friuli’s cooking contains dishes that have almost nothing to do with Italy. Stuffed cabbage rolls seasoned with paprika. Pasta tossed with poppy seeds and butter.…
What is cinghiale? Cinghiale is the Italian word for wild boar – a stocky, bristle-covered relative of the domestic pig that has lived in Italy’s forests and been eaten here for thousands of years. In Tuscany, it’s not unusual. It’s everywhere. The meat is darker and richer than…
What are Arrosticini? Arrosticini are small skewers of lamb or mutton meat, cut into cubes roughly 1cm on each side, threaded onto thin skewers and cooked fast over charcoal. The name comes from the Italian word arrostire — to roast or grill. They come from Abruzzo’s pastoral tradition. The region’s economy…
Friuli-Venezia Giulia sits in the north-east corner of Italy. Its borders with Austria, Slovenia and Hungary have shifted for centuries, and that history shaped everything about the way the region eats. The result is a regional cuisine with a character entirely its own – dishes rooted in the…
Anchovies A Guide to Italy’s Most Versatile Fish Anchovies are one of the most used ingredients in Italian cooking. They are also one of the most misunderstood. Most people who say they dislike anchovies have eaten them as a topping on pizza. And somehow they form a view…
This dish is simple to make and absolutely delicious. It tastes just as good as any seafood pasta you’d eat on the Abruzzo coast. Prawns, calamari and scampi, a light tomato base, a splash of white wine, and a long pasta to carry it all. That’s it. What…
Tuscan wild boar ragu is so iconic that it would be easy to assume that this is the only way Italians cook wild boar. But to think that would be to miss out on some extraordinary regional variations like this recipe for Friulian wild boar in umido with…
Italy has over 500 olive varieties – more than any other country in the world. Most people never get past ‘green or black’. This regional Guide to Italian Olives covers the most important ones: where they grow, what they taste like, and what Italian cooks do with them.…