Cooking World

Traditionally Italy has been divided into Southern and Northern regions with their specific climate peculiarities and consequently, farming, which has left an imprint on its cuisine. Think only about Tuscan, or Friulano, or Piemontese cooking, the variations are actually local.

Celebrating Christmas, the residents of the Tuscan city of Siena cook Panforte, a nutty fruitcake sweetened with honey, and Ricciarelli. With the approach of the holiday, every pastry shop makes these dishes and puts them on display. In Florence, which is very close to Siena, you will not find either.

Friuli Venzia Giulia has many ties with central Europe, and so the cuisine contains ingredients which can not be found in the rest of Italy. Some widely-spread dishes in one regions can be considered to be foreign in others, as has happened with Sauerkraut, Jota (pronounced Yota), an unusual but tasty bean soup.

Though now extra-virgin olive oil is popular throughout Italy, this has not always been like that. With the exception of a few areas near lakes, Northern Italy is too cold for growing of olive trees, and as a result many people got used butter for cooking. In the wormer Central and Southern Italy, and the Islands, on the other hand, people cooked with olive oil.