The Italian
Culture is much more than Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo,
the Colosseum and the Leaning Tower of Pisa . It engulfs
every little thing of the every day life of the average
Italian. Italian Culture is the Italian Food with the big
family dinners, the opera singing at the dinner table, the
"Mafia" accent, but it's also the great Italian history
starting with the Greeks and the Etruscans and the way they
influenced the later Roman Empire, the great Caesar, the
equally important Constantine the Great, Garibaldi and
many more.
What makes Italian food and
Italian Culture important is the way it transformed the
world the way we know it today. Looking around us we can see
all the "important" or "unimportant" things that the Italian
Food and the Italian Culture brought in our lives, from
pizza, pasta and Italian Recipes to Frank Sinantra and
Madonna, from Niccolo Machiavelli and Volta to the italian
fashion of Versace and Armani, from Ferrari and Lamborghini
to Sofia Loren and Roberto Benigni.
The Italian Food and
Italian Culture is all around us! The times of Charlemagne
restored the status of Italian cuisine as the food of
nobility. During the Renaissance, Italy became a
culinary world leader, with the publication of the cookbook
entitled, Libro per cuoco by a Venetian author.The
SouthItalian Food with the Italian tradition of using olive
oil in its cooking was introduced to Europe. The marital
union of Catherine de Medici and the King of France
introduced the French nobility to the Florentine custom of
using the eating implement, the fork, during mealtimes.
Christopher Columbus , brought from the Americas tomato and
potatoes, which added to the flavors and international
standing of Renaissance Italy. Marco Polo also brought the
noodle from Asia, which is now, in the foreign world. The
19th Century saw the introduction of mass-produced Italian
pasta, with the invention of special-purpose machines.
Parmesan cheese as a garnish for most dishes was introduced
in 1840. Extending from the North to the South, Italians
pride themselves in using ingredients native to each region
in their Italian Cooking, The use of onions in almost all
of their
dishesadds a rich flavor to its cuisine.
Cheeses from this
region such as gorgonzola, marscapone and lodigiano have
risen in reputation world-wide.Veneto, Fruili-Venezia,
Guilia and Trentino-Alto Adige are the three main regions of
the north-east. Each region has distinct Italian Recipes,
Italian Cooking and Italian Foods characteristics.