Description: The regions of Italy produce foods which differ enormously. It is a purely regional cuisine.

Frequently, the foreigner’s view of Italian cuisine is that it consists of pasta, such as spaghetti Bolognese, and pizza, with one or two well-known meat dishes, such as osso buco or bistecca (alla) fiorentina, thrown in, perhaps with bruschetta to start with. In Italy you will find ‘international restaurants’. These are not restaurants serving foods from around the world but restaurants catering for the tastes of foreigners. These will serve the commonly accepted famous dishes of Italy without regard to the regional nature of the cuisine.

Most cooking in restaurants is both regionally and seasonally based. In the north you are more likely to be served dishes which involve dairy produce, using butter rather than oil, often cream or mascarpone cheese. In the south these will be replaced with olive oil. Tuscany lurks on the border of this decision and produces so much high quality oil that it is used in place of dairy foods. It also uses white butter beans in soups, stews and salads. Naples and Sicily are renowned for their fish and their pizzas, Emilia-Romagna for a wonderful cuisine but particularly its stuffed pastas. Emilia-Romagna is also the home of Parma ham and Parmesan cheese. Genoa in Liguria is rightly famous for pesto, Rome for unweaned, milk-fed lamb (abbacchio) and Lombardy for bresaola. And so it goes on. We recommend that you click on the region of interest under 'See places' below to help you to find out about local foods and dishes.

In the north, the proximity of the French border has some influence on the cooking, though it is thought that actually it was cooks from the north of Italy travelling into France who created the basis of their great cuisine. Perhaps it was the influence of Italy on France rather than the other way round.

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