Italians’ Eating Style

Today I want to post an entry about lovely “Italian Eating Habits”. Talking about the eating habits of one community can be quite different because it can be changeable for each person. According to people’s childhood, how raised by their family and even genetic character, the eating way of the people shows variability. However, I can say that Italians have a particular culture in terms of their eating habits.

Especially, Sundays and some important days they really care “what and how they are going to eat”. On the other hand, as everybody knows (also from the movie “The Godfather” Il Padrino), the family construction is incredibly significant for Italians and one of the way of meeting with the family can be realized during the dinners. One of the extremely important thing is “Eating all the family together”.

For these reasons, all the family members should come together on Sundays, and religious days and have their meal all together. This is what the Italian culture and traditions require.

But what they are eating on these important days? This is the question that we will be interested in. There are some special terms existing in Italian meals such as: antipasto, primo piatto, secondo piatto, contorno and dolce.

Antipasto: This is the plate that consists of some types of hams, cheeses and dried tomatoes. It generally put on the center of the table and everybody having their meal share it. Hams generally made by the pork meat. The variety of the cheeses are numerous. (I should focus on this subject specifically on one entry.) Apart from the hams and cheese, the other kinds can be different according to the region, time and etc. Of course typical Italian table wines will accompany to the “Antipasto”.

 typical Italian Antipasto (pic from Florance)

Primo piatto: First meal is pasta for sure. Definitely “Pasta” is Italians national food. They generally eat pasta with some kinds of sauces such as “Pesto”, “Bolognese” etc. This will also exactly one of the other entry’s subject because Italian sauces are very various and every region has at least one particular sauce type. Moreover Parmesan cheese is added to the “Pasta”. Parmesan is a cheese type that is hard with a strong flavor. In some South Regions instead of Parmesan cheese, “Pecorino” cheese also can be used as a taste enriching.

 Pasta (pic from Bologna)

Secondo piatto: This is the second meal and it consists of meats. Meat types and the way of cooking the meat can be changeable, however generally pork meat or beef is used. Indeed, turkey meat, chicken, sheep meat can be also preferred.  According to the food that is desired to cook, it can be boiled, fried or cooked barbecue. 

 Famous T-Bone of Florance - Bloody Meat

Contorno: Contorno is not served on the other plate but it is generally served with the meat. In order to prepare “contorno” the types of the vegetables are used. They can boiled with water and then some salt and olive oil can be added on it. Apart from this, some kinds of vegetables can be fried together or separately and served with the meat. Even “French fries” like Americans can be preferred as contorno.

Until this step, Wine always takes its place on the table. For some very special days, some special wines are preferred. The special kind of wines probably can be the wines of the Toscana region which are having a big fame all over the world. Also the harvest year of the grapes have a important place in the quality of the wines. For instance, precious wines are produced with the grapes that are harvested in 2008 and 2004.  

Dolce: The direct translation of this word into English is “dessert”. But for Italians dolce is not only a dessert but also means a good final. The dessert is eaten always with some sweet wines, or liquor.

Finally, according to the day, Italians can continue to their meals with fruits, coffee and some small dessert.

This traditional eating habit takes at least 3 hours. Because for Italians as the importance of foods as the conversation and being together are important.

 Famous dessert type from AMALFI

Cleary Italians are not always eating very meals like that. Generally they skip one or two of them and sometimes they can eat just “pizza”. However this is their culture and this is what they eat amorously and they are trying to save this eating habit from the American fast food culture.

to be continued..