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We invite you to celebrate Italy’s favorite festival days & join in the preparation of delicious traditional fare. Throughout the calendar year, a score of festivals, Saint’s Days, and sagras- events celebrating the foods of the season, fill each day. Then we’ll take a quick trip through Italy’s different Regions to see what each one offers, and learn about the local ingredients and specialties. Just what you need to work up your appetite for a true culinary experience in Italy! Our traditional Recipe Book gives an inside look at the many recipes that span each of the 20 regions of Italy.
New Year-Pasta e Lenticchie
Pasta and lentils are served both on New Years Eve and New Year’s Day, is the their tradition to ensure good luck for the year ahead. Also popular are ceramic platters filled with lentils and served with stuffed pigs’ trotters or smoked ham shanks, and, as each little lentil is supposed to represent a coin, the more lentils you eat, the richer you will become. This tradition is more likely to succeed, of course, if you are wearing lucky red underwear!
February-Carnival & Lasagne
Lasagne, traditionally baked in all regions of Italy for Carnival, is a layered treasure, stuffed with the meats and cheeses that are forbidden during Lent. Most families make their own fresh lasagna, and fillings range from tiny pork meatballs, mozzarella and ragù, to hard-boiled eggs, pork sausages, ricotta and tomato sauce. Vegetarian lasagne is also made with a variety of layered squash, pumpkin, or eggplant.
Zeppole-Christmas, New Years & Saint Joseph’s
Made on March 19 to celebrate Saint Joseph's Day, (that’s Father’s Day in Italy), zeppole are cream-filled pastries drizzled with honey and sprinkled with powder sugar. Extremely more-ish. Zeppoles fried in bow-shapes or small bits and tossed in cinnamon and sugar are also served at Christmas & New Years.
Easter-Pastiera
No Southern Italian Easter would be complete without a freshly baked pastiera, the traditional Easter cake, made with cooked wheat, fresh eggs, ricotta, fresh cream, candied citrus peel and aromatic orange flower water.
Fall & Castagna Season
Italian chestnuts are renowned for their excellent quality, and many regions celebrate the chestnut harvest with a town festival or sagra. Here, visitors can sample chestnuts in countless different ways: roasted over coals, boiled with bay leaves and served in brown paper cones, cooked and transformed into the wonderful castagnaccio, or ground to a fragrant flour that is used to make cakes and breads, always accompanied with a glass of vino novello.
Natale-Christmas
It would be impossible to cover each region’s Christmas specialties, but among the favorites are insalata di natale - Christmas salad; broccoli rapini - Italian broccoli, baccalà - salt cod, torrone- a honey nut candy, and struffoli - delicious sweet fried dough balls drizzled with honey.
Pizza & Pasta!
Pizza
Naples is the birthplace of pizza. Invented in 1889, Neapolitan Chef Raffaele Esposito, in trying to satisfy the Queen with an innovative finger food like eaten with the hands, created a special pizza for the Italian Queen Margherita. He decorated the pizza with tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil,- in the colors of the Italian flag. According to the Naples Pizza Disciple, the only true pizzas are Marinara and Margherita.
Pasta
Italy offers over 1000 more types of pasta. Fresh hand-made, stuffed, rolled, twisted and dry, varieties include: fettuccine, tagliatelle, spaghetti, tagliolini, bavette, linguine, vermicelli, bucatini, pappardell, farfalle, fusilli orecchiette, conchiglie, trofie, penne, tortellini, ravioli, cannelloni, gnocchi scialatielli, tortellini and anolini, to name a few.
Dishes Named After Italian Stars
Famous Italians who have marked Italy's history on the culinary charts include, Don Enrico Caruso, famous cook and troubadour, who started his career going from restaurant to restaurant singing songs for tips. He was recognized for his "bucatini alla Caruso," the dish that spread Neapolitan cookery and opened up the American market to pasta. There is also native Neapolitan and famous actress, Sophia Loren, known for her signature dish "chicken alla cacciatora." And “The Godfather”, himself, Marlin Brando’s, favorite recipe included, thin slices of fresh fennel & Sicilian oranges drizzled with virgin olive oil.
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