La cucina italiana (the Italian kitchen), with its appetizing medleys of aromas, flavors, colors and textures continues to gain magnitude as the Western world’s favorite cuisine. Italian food is doubly appealing for its healthful nature, and is increasingly esteemed as the ideal modern way to eat. By now, the pleasures of pasta, pizza, risotto, balsamic vinegar, Parmigiano Reggiano, Mozzarella, gelato and espresso are so familiar to foreigners that they might not realize that Italy doesn’t have a stereotyped national cuisine. Instead, dishes vary from region to region and town to town.

It’s this local individuality that makes la cucina italiana so original, so diversified, and so delightful. Fresh produce is essential to Italian cooks. But menus also rely on specialty foods – cheeses, pasta, cured meats and fish, baked goods, olive oil, vinegar, condiments and sauces – crafted by artisan in Italy following age-old techniques. Their excellence can’t be duplicated, yet copies abound. The gap in quality between Italy’s authentic artisan foods and the widespread fabrications continues to grow.

Still, despite the different attitudes about eating expressed from the Mediterranean isles to the Alps, Italian foods have points in common. Consider pizza, which migrated from Naples to become what must rank as Italy’s favorite fast food. Every Italian town has a gelateria. And every piazza has a bar with aromatic espresso.

Pasta is a national institution. Still, pasta falls into two basic categories: the dried, and the fresh. Dried pasta prevailed in the south and fresh pasta in the north. But barriers fell as spaghetti and maccheroni gained ground to the Alps and beyond and ravioli and tortellini (with their northern partners risotto and polenta) won admirers.

Each province of Italy has its salumi – cured meat products, usually from pork, but also from other animals, in the forms of salame, sausages, prosciutto, mortadella, bresaola and more. Italians produce some 450 different cheeses, from the milk of cows, sheep, goats and even water buffalo. The best known are Parmigiano Reggiano, Gorgonzola, Grana Padano, Mozzarella, Provolone and Pecorino Romano. The national inventory of pastries, biscuits and cakes is equally awe-inspiring. Italian meals may progress through multiple courses, from antipasto to primo and secondo and on to dolce.

But even a simple repast would not be complete without vino. Italy makes more wine than any other country in the greatest variety of types and styles. Each of the 20 regions provides distinctive foods and wines, which have an inherent affinity for one another. Today, Italians retain their customary loyalty to local foods and wines. This region-by-region review of the cucina begins in the south, in the islands, in those antique Mediterranean lands where the roots of Italy’s culinary culture were formed.

Regions of Italy: Click on the map to the right to choose which region you would like to read about. 1. Piedmont 2. Aosta Valley 3. Lombardy 4. Trentino Alto Adige 5. Veneto 6. Friuli-Venezia Giulia 7. Liguria 8. Emilia-Romagna 9. Tuscany 10. Umbria 11. Marches 12. Latium 13. Abruzzo 14. Molise 15. Campania 16. Apulia 17. Basilicata 18. Calabria 19. Sicily 20. Sardinia

Sicily (Map #19) - Back to Map
Sicily’s exotic array of foods bespeaks the influences of prominent settlers. Greeks, who baked flatbreads that were forerunners to pizza and focaccia, used the snows of Mount Etna to make gelato. Italy’s first pasta industry was founded near Palermo in the 12th century. Sicilian menus rely on vegetables, herbs, spices, olives and olive oil, capers and fish. A noted first course is pasta con le sarde (noodles with sardines and wild fennel). Vegetable stews called caponata (based on eggplant and tomato) and peperonata (based on peppers) may accompany freshly caught tuna or swordfish. Popular cheeses are Pecorino Romano and Caciocavallo, though creamy soft ricotta is used in pasta fillings and pastries.

Sardinia (Map #20) - Back to Map
Modern Sardinia is known for seaside resorts, where summer crowds feast on fish from the island’s rocky coasts and sip cool white Vermentino and Nuragus. The main port of Cagliari offers a piquant fish stew called burrida. Alghero boasts aragosta (rock lobster). Near Oristano they dry mullet eggs as the pungent bottarga, to slice thin over pasta or salads.

Calabria (Map #18) - Back to Map
The ancient Greeks dined sumptuously in Calabria. The diet relies on soups and pastas laden with vegetables, especially eggplants and peppers, which are stewed with pork and tomatoes in what is called mursiellu. Pork prevails in ham and salame, though lamb is equally prized. The Tyrrhenian renders ala longa (baby tuna) and swordfish. Pitta chicculiata is a type of pizza with fish, tomato and capers.

Basilicata (Map #17) - Back to Map
The people of this sparsely populated region share with their southern neighbors a taste for lamb and pork, whose variations include sausage known as luganega (after the region’s alternate name of Lucania). Other specialties include pasta tubes known as minuich, lasagne with beans and a stew called ciammotta (with eggplant, peppers, tomatoes and potatoes). Basilicata’s cooking is fiery, thanks to liberal lacings of chili pepper, here called diavolicchio. Fichi secchi, ammandorlati (fresh and dried figs and almonds) are popular in the region.

Apulia (Map #16) - Back to Map
This long, slender region forms the heel of the Italian boot and a source of cereals and the nation’s largest volumes of wine and olive oil. Lamb prepared in many ways, such as abbacchio e funghi, (lamb and mushrooms) is the preferred meat, though pastas, soups and vegetables, such as fava beans and artichokes, provide sustenance. Specialties include the pasta shells called orecchiette and cavatieddi (the first served with turnip greens, the second with rocket), tiella (rice and potatoes layered with meat, cheese or fish) and ciceri e tria (noodles with chick peas). The Adriatic and Ionian seas provide cozze (mussels) and ostriche (oysters).

Campania (Map #15) - Back to Map
Campania Felix today supply Naples and its region with tomatoes, eggplants, peppers and fruit of unmatched flavor. The gulf abounds in fish. Buffalo grazed near Salerno, and Capua yields the finest of Mozzarella di Bufala and Provola. But Naples reigns as a paradise of street food. The primadonna, of the byways is pizza in versions called Marinara (with tomato, garlic and oil) and Margherita (with tomato, basil and Mozzarella). Neapolitans are equally devoted to maccheroni dressed with pummarola (tomato sauce). The city is justly famous for ices, pastries and seductively sweet espresso.

Abruzzo (Map #13) - Back to Map
The people of this mountainous Adriatic region have long been noted for some of Italy’s best cooks. The sea provides the fish for brodetto (a peppery soup). Vaunted pasta is maccheroni alla chitarra (quadrangular strands formed by the strings of what resembles a guitar), dressed with tomato, olives and diavolino, the pepper that enlivens many a dish. Lamb and pork prevail in Abruzzi and Molise, which also share cheeses.

Molise (Map #14) - Back to Map
As in other parts of the Apennines, the porchetta (roast pork), flavored with mountain herbs, is superb. The Molise cook also shows a deft hand with lamb, turning out dishes such as agnello alle olive (lamb stewed with black olives) and agnello brodettato (lamb cooked in white wine and served with a sauce thickened with egg yolks and flavored with lemon juice). The region’s flocks also supply ewe’s milk cheeses that are used in many ways. Ricotta, for example, is combined with raw ham and Provolone to create a stuffing for calcioni (pastry envelopes that are deep-fried and served as part of a frittura mista). Scarmorza is a mellow cow’s milk cheese that is popular throughout the region and is usually toasted over a wood fire or roasted in the oven.

Marches (Map #11) - Back to Map
The Adriatic provides the choicest of sea creatures – of which 13 are required in the broth of Ancona’s brodetto – to be complemented by Verdicchio, the paragon of fish wines. Fish or fowl may be cooked in potacchio (with tomato, onion, garlic and rosemary). Special treats are the giant green olives of Ascoli, stuffed with meat and fried, and vincisgrassi, an elaborate lasagne with bechamel cheese and truffles – preferably the white variety, which abound in the Marches.

Umbria (Map #10) - Back to Map
Umbria makes a major share of dried pasta, though its fresh tagliatelle with ragout can rival the best of Emilia. It produces some of Italy’s finest olive oil and most of its black truffles. These come from beds around Norcia, a town whose pork butchers are noted for the art of making salumi and the roasting of porchetta (whole pig) in woodfired ovens. Equally admired are the region’s Chianina beef, lamb, poultry and rabbit. Umbrian cured meats, like prosciutto di agnello e dindo affumicato (lamb and turkey “hams” are famous.)

Latium (Map #12) - Back to Map
As a perennial melting pot for foods from far flung places, Rome offers cosmopolitan menus. Yet the Eternal City boasts many tasty dishes of its own. Tempting arrays of antipasti may be followed by spaghetti alla carbonara (with eggs, bacon and cheese), bucatini alla matriciana (tubes with tomato, salt pork and pungent Pecorino Romano) or the popular fettuccine al burro (egg noodles with butter, cream and Parmigiano Reggiano). Seafood of every sort is served, but a local favorite is cozze alla marinara (mussels steamed with tomato). Meat dishes include tender abbacchio (milk-fed lamb) and zesty coda alla vaccinara (oxtail stew). Roman meals often end with a glass of sweet sambuca liqueur, sipped with three coffee beans to munch on.

Tuscany (Map #9) - Back to Map
Tuscan cooking attests to the innate goodness of seasonal produce and splendid extra virgin olive oil. In Florence’s region, bread baked in wood-fired ovens upstages pasta. Slices of pane toscano may be toasted with garlic and oil as fettunta or bruschetta, crumbled into panzanella (with tomatoes and onions) or spread with chicken liver paste as crostini. Bread sustains the thick vegetable soups called ribollita and pappa al pomodoro (literally tomato pap). Tuscans, who relish vegetables, herbs and wild mushrooms, have a weakness for fagioli (stewed white beans) that are indispensable with bistecca alla fiorentina (thick steak from native Chianina beef). Fish excels along the coast, where Livorno’s cacciucco is a zesty soup. Pecorino Toscano is the most savory of sheep cheeses.

Emilia-Romagna (Map #8) - Back to Map
Pasta – by definition fresh and rolled by hand by a sfogliatrice – triumphs as tagliatelle, tortellini, tortelli, cappelletti and lasagne (to name a few). Pork reigns supreme in Prosciutto di Parma, Modena’s zampone, Piacenza’s coppa, Bologna’s mortadella and delectable salame. Emilia is the home of Parmigiano Reggiano, king of cheeses, and the aceto balsamico tradizionale of Modena and Reggio, which must be aged at least 12 years in wooden barrels to become dark and dense and almost too divine to be called vinegar (imitations, naturally, abound). They also relish fish from the Adriatic, served with dry white Albana di Romagna.

Liguria (Map #7) - Back to Map
The Mediterranean diet takes on touches of genius along the Riviera that flanks the busy port of Genoa. Restaurateurs demand sea bass and prawns and the makings of cappon magro, a pyramid built with a dozen types of seafood, including oysters and lobsters. Cooks seem to be deftest with produce from their terraced hillsides: pale golden olive oil, vegetables, nuts and herbs, above all with basil as the base of pesto, the green sauce that glorifies trenette and other pasta. Pansôti are a type of ravioli dressed with salsa di noci (walnut sauce).

Piedmont (Map #1) - Back to Map
Piedmont’s staunchly traditional cooking hits peaks in autumn, the season of game and mushrooms and, above all, the white truffles of Alba, which emit magical aromas when shaved over pasta and risotto. Alba’s hills produce majestic Barolo and Barbaresco, as well as Dolcetto and Barbera, reds that flow with fonduta (fondue of Fontina cheese), carne cruda (marinated raw veal), tajarin noodles with truffles, meat-stuffed envelopes called agnolotti, brasato (beef braised with Barolo) and tasty cheese called Toma. Piedmont’s capital of Turin is noted for grissini, (yard-long breadsticks) good munched with bagna caôda (“hot bath” of oil, garlic and anchovies into which raw vegetables are dipped).

Valle d’Aosta (Map #2) - Back to Map
Italy’s tiniest region is tucked into the loftiest angle of the Alps, bordering on France, Switzerland and Piedmont, whose influences can be tasted. Yet the foods of French-speaking Valle d’Aosta have a rarefied character of their own. Thick soups and polenta outrank pasta, though meat is the essence of the hearty cuisine in salami, sausages, hams and stews of beef, pork and venison. Fontina cheese is the base of fondue. Meals conclude with the passing of the grolla, a pot containing coffee and grappa sipped from numerous spouts.

Lombardy (Map #3) - Back to Map
Milanese adore the saffron-tinted risotto alla milanese, it’s often served with ossobuco (a braised veal shank), as well as such tasty fillers as busecca (tripe soup) and casoeûla (pork stewed with beans and cabbage). The city’s panettone Christmas cake is a national best-seller. Pavia is noted for risotto with frogs and snails. At Mantua tortelli envelopes are filled with sweet pumpkin pasta. Cremona offers you mostarda (mustard-flavored candied fruits) with boiled meats. At Bergamo they often serve the polenta with tiny birds cooked crisp. The Alpine Valtellina is noted for bresaola (air-dried beef) and the buckwheat noodles called pizzoecheri. Lombardy shares with Piedmont the delight of vitello tonnato (sliced veal with tuna and caper sauce).

Veneto (Map #5) - Back to Map
Venice, as a seafood haven, exalts razor-shell clams called cannolicchi, granseole (Adriatic crabs) and risotto nero (blackened with cuttlefish ink). But the Venetians also dine on the earthly likes of risi e bisi (rice and peas), fegato alla veneziana (liver with onions) and Carpaccio. That raw beef dish seems to have originated in the canal city, as did the chocolate covered dessert called tiramisù. The Veneto’s rich and varied diet reflects an enviable balance of sources. The plains supply grain, Vialone Nano rice for risotto, corn for polenta and livestock. The Alpine slopes provide game, wild mushrooms, air-dried prosciutto and the cheeses of Asiago and Montasio. Delicacies include pastissada (beef stew with potato gnocchi), Vicenza’s bigoli con l’anara (thick spaghetti with duck ragout), Treviso’s sopa coada (pigeon and vegetable soup) and Padua’s pasta e fasioi (pasta and bean soup).

Friuli-Venezia Giulia (Map #6) - Back to Map
In Italy’s northeast corner, the country fare of Friuli (the Alpine area to the north) contrasts with the more delicate diet of Venezia Giulia (the Adriatic coast taking in Trieste). Friulians grill meats and sausages at the open hearth fogolar and savor such curiosities as jota (liquidy polenta with pork and cabbage), frico (crunchy fried cheese), cialzons (sweet-sour pasta packets) and muset con la brovada (pork rind with turnips steeped in grape pressings). The hills render Montasio cheese and the exquisite Prosciutto of San Daniele. Coastal dwellers favor pasta and seafood: prawns, squid, scallops, spider crabs called granzevola and the tangy chowder called boreto alla gradese. Menus also echo the tangs of Austrian and Slavic neighbors with the likes of gulasch and the apple strudel called strucolo.

Trentino-Alto Adige (Map #4) - Back to Map
Amid the towering Dolomites of this northernmost region, Italian and Germanic cultures mingle. In Alto Adige (or Südtirol, the German-speaking province of Bolzano), Tyrolean customs prevail in wursts, potatoes, rye bread and soups. In Trentino (the province of Trento to the south), Venetian traditions of pasta, polenta and gnocchi take on Alpine accents with butter, cheese, game and a dazzling array of wild mushrooms. Trentino’s best include blood sausages called biroldi and buckwheat cakes called smacafam served with sausage and cheese. Alto Adige makes fine smoked bacon called speck and loaves of deliciously dark Schwarzbrot. Still, in these days of cultural exchange the South Tyroleans may dine on pizza or spaghetti just as readily as the Trentini eat Knödel (liver dumplings) or kraut. With those qualities in mind, Trentino-Alto Adige makes an excellent closing argument in any well constructed case for the unmatched diversity of cucina italiana.

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