Popular Foods of Italy

Popular Foods of Italy
(Types of Italian Food, Common Italian Dishes,
traditional Italian Food)

For Popular Italian drinks, see: Italian drinks and liquors

The Italian menu is typically structured in much the same way all over Italy - with an antipasto, primo, secondo and dessert -, but each region of Italy has its own regional food specialities. More about the Italian cuisine.

Some of Italy's most famous gourmet delicacies which have gained internal fame, such as white truffles, are found only in certain regions of Italy.

More common Italian foods and dishes include all types of pasta and pizza, and delicious meat and fish dishes. Depending on their type, Italian cheeses can be served as antipasto, added as topping on primi or used for the preparation of secondi, contorni or desserts.

Pasta
Pasta can be subdivided according to their composition, (only wheat flour and water or wheat flour, water and eggs), their shelf-life (fresh or dry pasta), their production method and their shape or cut.
See: types of pasta and 10 most famous pasta dishes of Italy.

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Many shapes are available, but Italians usually group the different shapes into short and long pasta, and plain or stuffed pasta. Each shape of pasta is matched with a different sauce depending on that shape's ability to hold that specific sauce. Some pasta types are found only in a particular region or change name according to the region.

Pizza
Pizza is an oven-baked, flat, round-shaped bread covered with ingredients such as tomato sauce, cheese, olive oil and optionally other toppings. There are, broadly speaking, two types of pizza: the neapolitan one, which is relatively tick and ressembles a flat bread, and the roman one, which is much thinner and crustier. The neapolitan pizza is close to the type of pizza found in the US.

Italians also distinguish between red (with tomato sauce) and white pizza (also called foccacia, which has no tomato sauce, but can be topped with other ingredients). More about Italian pizza.

Italian cuisine does not include a large variety of spices, but the spices and herbs used are almost always used fresh adding a delicate flavor to the dishes. Read more about the typical spices and herbs used in Italian cuisine. Balsamic vinegar, olive oil, Parmesan cheese (or Pecorino), black olives, pine kernels are also used to flavor dishes (the latter one especially in some regional dishes). Olive oil is also the basic ingredient used for cooking. More about olive oils and vinegars.

In Italy (and the rest of Europe) the name Parmesan is a protected designation of origin for the hard, granular cheese from Parma. The generic name for this type of cheese from other parts of Italy is grana.

To merit the official seal and be placed in storage for aging, each Parmigiano Reggiano wheel must meet strict criteria from the early stages when the cheese is still soft and creamy until it is tested by the Consorzio Parmigiano Reggiano after 12 months of aging.
More Italian cheeses >>

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