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Local Dishes in Italy: 5 Things to Help Identify Them

Local Dishes, Local Dishes , Local Dishes

1- Savouring local dishes is a must when travelling throughout Italy. If you see dishes named after the towns you are in, you won’t go wrong. When in Milan, for instance a Risotto alla Milanese would be a give-away that it’s a local dish.

Val Sesia italiabound.com slow food local ingredients
Rye bread tartine with lard, honey and nuts… and a bottle of Gattinara

2– Look in the menu for “piatti tipiciwhich means, “typical dishes”. Furthermore, if you dine at an osteria or trattoria, most likely, they would promote local dishes.

italiabound.com Il Cavenago slow food
A menu promoting local producers, traditional ingredients and homestyle dishes at agriturismo Il Cavenago

Farmhouses Mean Freshness

3- Agriturismi are a guarantee for fresh, kilometre-zero ingredients. These farms grow the ingredients right on site. As a result, their neighbouring farms also often produce many of the ingredients for their menus, as the photo above illustrates. You can’t get it any fresher.

4- Look for DOC and DOCG wines. Hence, the origin of the ingredients is controlled and guaranteed. On the labels of cheeses and insaccati you’ll see the DOP stamp. Those ingredients are the best in quality, guaranteed and protected. 

You can purchase DOGC and DOP products anywhere in the world. Ask if a DOP product is local. If not, you know you’ll be eating quality products, just not from the area that you are in.

Read my blog on 13 Italian Cultural Habits... to above all, have a better understanding of Italian food culture, while travelling through Italy.

Markets and Festivals

5- At a mercato look for seasonal vegetables, fruits. No one toots their own horn better than Italians do. As a result, local businesses and towns love to promote typical ingredients, dishes and history.

slow food Italy food culture La Morra Italiabound.com
fresh cheeses at a market in La Morra in the Langhe

Bonus

6- Attend festivals or sagre in the areas that you are visiting. You may want to ask where and when these events are. Visit websites that promote these sagre. All over Italy, towns organize festivals to celebrate a harvest, a season, or a saint of some sort and therefore, will use any excuse to savour local traditional specialties.

Live Like the Locals Do

Tourists are not the only ones flocking to these sagre to try local dishes, drink local wines, and dance the night away. It has been an Italian way of life for generations.

One of my favourite hands down is Friuli DOC. This festival starts on the second Thursday of September. Over 100 000 visitors pour into the streets of the North Eastern city of Udine daily for four straight days to experience regional dishes, wines, spirits,  music, dances, and costumes.

slow food Italy food culture italiabound.com La Morra

Every piazza, viale, and roundabout has kiosks or tents sampling food from all over the region of Friuli Venezia Giulia. It’s an amazing event…and what an event it is. If you find yourself in the vicinity of Udine during  that week, you must take a detour and visit it at all costs.

The warm summer months bring people out to the many sagre. Italians spend  their weekends traveling from town to town in search of great food, wine, and folklore events. They definitely know how to celebrate life.

Eating fresh food and celebrating life is quintessential to Italians and probably the main reason for their existence.

If you interested in more information about Italy or help in organizing a trip there, please leave a message below or contact me privately at info@italiabound.com

‘Til then…Buon viaggio!

5 Things to Know About Dining in Italy

 

Italy’s food culture is unique in many ways. From their passion with slow food, to the diversity of their cuisine varying from one region to an other, and often from town to  town. Food and eating together is the reason why Italians exists.

Life, relationships, family and even work often revolve around the table. Food is to Italians what the heart is to our body. Without it it’s society would die. Everything is planned around that. Although eating is important, just as important are the Italian etiquette around food and restaurants. often quite different from  North America.

 No Need to Tip

1- Unlike in North America where staffing is inexpensive because we expect the restaurant goers to pay for the hired help with tips, in Italy the servers and cooks have a set labour contract. Their wages are completely covered so you don’t need to tip. It’s never expected, but if you like to, it’s a minimal amount.

When is the Best Time to Eat?

2-  Restaurants are not always open ready to serve anytime you feel hungry, unless you are in a tourist infested area. Restaurants tend to open just before noon and stay open until 2:30 PM or so. In some cases, they don’t take tables past 2:00 PM.

They re-open again later around 7 o’clock in the evening and dinners are served until late.  It all depends on the location; downtown, suburbs, big cities, small towns or high traffic areas on highways

. The seasons also play a big role in when restaurants open and close. Most places are closed one day, some two days of the week, usually Monday, Tuesday but also Wednesday or Thursday.

That Seems like a lot of Food

3- Italians eat in courses at both lunch or dinner. They’ll have at least two plus the caffe.

Antipasti. (appetizers) Not to be confused with aperitivi.

Primi. (first dishes) usually those are starches, such pasta or risotto or soup.

Secondi. (second dishes) tent to be meats, fish. Often you would receive the meat by itself with no sides.

Contorni. (side dishes) Arrive with you secondi maybe salads, steamed and cooked vegetables or fries, etc. etc.  These are brought on different plates.

Formaggi (cheeses) Usually this will be a selection of local cheeses.

Dolci. (dessert)

Frutta. (fruit) It is common to finish with fresh fruit. And last but not least…

Caffè. This is always an espresso and sometime it’s corretto which means that grappa or another kind of liquor is added to the caffè. Never ever order a cappuccino or a macchiato at end of meal. It’s frowned upon.

Cover Charge?… for What?

4- Coperto is a cover charge for each person sitting down having dinner. This varies from 1 to even 5 Euros or so depending on the type of restaurant. A pizzeria is usually 1 to 2€ for instance. Osterie style restaurants may not even have one. High-end restaurants will be more. The charge goes back to the medieval days when the inns would charge for using the place when customers would bring  their own food and just used the inn as a refuge from the weather. The cover is for the linen, cutlery and bread. This would be posted on the menu so there are no surprises.

Free Food?

5- Aperitivi are not antipasti, so if you drop in at a bar around 6 o’clock or so you can go for a aperitivo and in most cases food is served with it free of charge. Yes, the food is free, as long as you buy a drink. Some bars (bars in Italy are cafés or wine tasting shops) offer apercena, which translated is aper (aperitif) and cena (dinner).

Here you can literally eat to your heart’s desire and all you pay for is your drinks. Often you do this standing up and/or outside the bar in the street while wandering in and out sampling and eating finger food and chatting the night away. I recommend finding at least one of these places while you are traveling. It’s a great way to see the Italian dolce vita at work while sampling different dishes and wines. Here you pay before you eat.

BONUS…

You must always ask for the bill, as waiters will not bring it to you automatically at the end of your meal. It would be considered extremely rude to do that. The reasoning behind this is that the evening is not finished just because the food is. Italians often stay and talk for hours after the caffè and only when they are ready to leave they ask ( by a hand wave) the bill.

DOUBLE BONUS…

Lately all over Italy and mostly in the larger cities a new phenomenon  is occurring.

Restaurants where the “ imbonitori” stand outside and invite you in. You’ve seen them in the Latin Quarters in Paris and there they belong. But in Italy…No thank you! Often these hosts offer a free appetizer or a drink (but you will pay for it in other ways) to entice you to enter. They may even tell you that they serve the best pasta in town.

It’s pretty obvious that these are only really inviting tourist as regular restaurant goers would never think of being duped by these individuals. If they need to ” invite”, the food is usually not that good. Even Italian tourists in their own country would never go here so why should you?

AVOID at all cost these places. Stay clear. But, if you do go, you then lose the right to complain that you’ve been to Italy and the food was terrible.  You have been warned.

“Uomo avvisato mezzo salvato”.

Translation : Man that has been warned,  is a man half saved”

‘Till then… Buon Viaggio!

Are  you travelling to Italy and are interested in my assistance, or would like to comment on my post?  Just drop a line below or contact me privately at info@italiabound.com.