Italian food is famous throughout the world for being healthy, delicious and easy to prepare. Catering for a variety of tastes, famous Italian food includes pizza, pasta dishes with a variety of sauces as well as a variety of red meat dishes. Whatever your preferences, you can be sure to find a great Italian dish that you will love.
Mushroom Pesto Lasagna
This is a great dish to allow vegetarians to have a taste of Italy! For best results you should make with fresh egg pasta rather than using dried lasagna noodles. This can be served along with parmesan cheese for best results.
Shrimp Scampi
Getting this recipe right involves cooking the scampi to perfection. This recipe is great with garlic and butter, while serving crusty bread alongside it will ensure that diners have an opportunity to sop up any residual sauce.
Fish Soup with Gremolata
This can be found in different forms and with different regional takes throughout Italy. The seafood you decide to use can vary based on the preferences of the diner, and what is available for you to use at a given time. Usually cooked in white wine, this dish was originates from the Adriatic coast where it first became popular decades ago.
Chicken Scarpariello
This is a dish which is often referred to as being Italian American, translating as shoemakers chicken, the dish comprises of chicken in a lemon sauce. The chicken should be cooked until golden brown and the meal should be served alongside a dry white wine.
Chicken Marsala
This is a unique dish because it looks so elegant that it is suitable for the most sophisticated of occasions, however it is so easy to prepare. The dish is healthy because it is does not use much oil, and the chicken is usually served in a bed of flavored herb rice, alternatively it can also be served alongside potatoes.
Spaghetti and Meatballs
The trick to perfecting this recipe is to use the best possible ingredients you can find and take advantage of them. The quality of chopped tomatoes that you use can really make or break this dish. If you are making the meatballs then you could either opt for beef and veal or beef and turkey; they are probably the most suited to the sauce.
Beef Carpaccio
This dish consists of thin slices of raw beef and is generally served as an appetizer or a starter. The dish was originally conceived in Harry's Bar in Venice where it has since became popular throughout the world. The variations between Arugula Leaves, lemon wedges and raw beef make the taste so unique.
Zuppa Toscana
This dish consists of turkey sausage, onions, bacon and potatoes. Although not an overly healthy recipe, that does not stop thousands of people around the world naming it their favorite Italian dish of all time. A great aspect of this dish is that it can really be tailored to anyone's taste, such as changing the ratio of Chicken Broth and heavy cream ? or alternatively including or leaving out certain meats.
Another one could be the quality of its ingredients. A good Italian dish depends directly on the freshness and genuinity of its ingredients.
During the present times, it is important to preserve quality standards to avoid a quality loss while looking for convenience in international markets.
Quality Brands
To protect the originality of some typical products and processes, the European Union created the quality brands PDO (Protected designation of origin) and PGI (Protected Geographical Indication).
The PDO protects both the origin of the raw material and the typical production process. The PGI protects the typical process, allowing the raw material to come from other parts.
The weak ring is the low knowledge people have about these brands. They are created to foster the typical products, benefiting the customers, as they distinguish the real typical products from the common ones that are maybe sold as an equal quality product. Some researches showed that the number of people who knows about these brands is still a minor part of the customers.
The most known example regards the parmesan cheese. Most of the customers know parmesan as a type of Italian cheese. How many of these customers know about the sentence from European Union stating that Parmesan is the cheese produced in a determined region of Italy, under the rules of Parmigiano Reggiano consortium?
Only this cheese can be called Parmigiano or parmesan. The other ones, produced all around the world (this sentence regarded a german cheese) cannot use this name. If they do so, they are doing it unproperly.
Typical food quality and Tourism
This example shows the importance of preserving the food culture. Otherwise, in a few years, in this globalization environment, we were going to eat the same things everywhere, losing this important culture factor that is made of typical processes and products.
When we travel, we do not go visiting museums or monuments only? each place carries its culture also concerning food.
Studies show that the number of tourists that consider the food as an important factor while choosing a destination is growing. A relevant number wants to experience it visiting wineries, agritourist sites and ?touching with hand? the process of producing typical products. Often also buying local products to take home part of that experience lived in that specific territory.
Hunger and quality
Quality is for comfortable people. It should not be like this, but it is. People is able to look for quality when is not hungry. Talk about quality brands and typical products has sense when people is already replete, and have the possibilities to choose.
This fact doesn't mean quality shoudn't be present in every product, but it means that look for a special extra virgin olive oil has sense for someone who already uses and know what an extra virgin olive oil is.
This may be a risk for poor civilizations that may loose their typical process while looking for cheaper food. They may buy from the outside more convenient food rather than evaluating their own typical processes, that may cost more and give less harvest.
Quantity x quality
The process of obtaining smaller harvests began with a huge production of butter in the 70's, that was storaged in European warehouses. In a world where there is still people who die for hunger, such economic measure to avoid the prices decrease isn't correct. So, what shoud be done to avoid this inconvenient problem (too much food stored)? Produce less! The biologic products were born then to fulfill this need: smaller harvests using less chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
The process continued and people began to notice that ?less is better?. Typical products with small outputs began to be considered specialties. If a kind of olive tree gives less harvest, their product is a niche product.
But how a common customer can notice this difference? Through the quality brands. It's a powerful tool for quality food lovers.
A unique product has no need of a quality brand. Some special brands of balsamic vinegar are sold by more than 2000 US dollars per litre. These are unique products by themselves, as a Ferrari is between machines.
But regarding the good products that can be confused with similar in appearance, the quality brand is necessary and allows the gourmets to buy and enjoy special food that continue to be produced as they used to be, respecting the local traditions and allowing us to live in a global world that preserve the differences cultures need to keep the history alive.
Both Giammarco Schisani & Ana Maria Da Costa Vasconcellos are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Giammarco Schisani has sinced written about articles on various topics from Food and Drink. Giammarco Schisani, a proficient writer, writes for . Supplementary editorials that were written by Giammarco Schisani about and. Giammarco Schisani's top article generates over 5400 views. to your Favourites.
Ana Maria Da Costa Vasconcellos has sinced written about articles on various topics from Food and Drink, Cooking Tips and Food and Drink. Ana Maria da Costa, economist and enogastronomic expert, lives in Italy since 1983 and shows Italian food culture from the inside, with tips and useful info in her website. Ana Maria Da Costa Vasconcellos's top article generates over 5400 views. to your Favourites.