Foods Across Italy

Italy has such amazing food it is a shame there isn’t more time in a day to eat. One of the best memories about eating in Italy was how many strangers we shared tables with, ate, and subsequently had lengthy conversations with.

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We met some fellow travelers from the U.S. and ate dinner with them in Rome. In Montepulciano we shared a table with visitors from France and in Florence we ate lunch with a couple from the United Kingdom.

It was also interesting to note how the dishes varied depending on what region you were in Italy. For example, it was common to see prosciutto and melon and pasta with pancetta. In Naples, pizza was common and pasta with seafood. On the Amalfi Coast there was a lot of seafood, olives, and of course lemons. You must have some limoncello. It is usually offered after a meal. In Florence we were offered soups and steaks.

Table of Contents

Rome

Bruschetta is a common antipasto or what we would call an appetizer in the U.S. Another common common antipasto in Rome is prosciutto and melon.

I really like Fettuccine Alfredo, which doesn’t exist in Italy, so my favorite pasta in Italy was Carbonara. Carbonara is a dish found in Rome and includes spaghetti noodles, with an egg and cheese sauce and guanciale or pancetta. Guanciale and pancetta is cured pork.

Naples

Naples is the birthplace of pizza, so we had to grab a slice while we were there. We stopped at one of the cafes near Pompeii to eat lunch. It was good, but very little cheese compared to pizza in the U.S.

Amalfi Coast

Even breakfast is pretty in Italy. This was a typical breakfast we had during our time in the Amalfi Coast. However, we found tomato, cheese, meat, and pastries were common breakfast items all over Italy.

The local bakery offered such pretty desserts. While on Amalfi Coast try Torta Ricotta e Pere. It is a dessert with ricotta cheese and pears. They are very popular in this part of Italy.

We ate in Vico Equin se several times and one of the best hors d’oeuvres bacon wrapped cheese and olives.

We stopped at the local market to purchase olives from the deli at least three times in the Amalfi Coast. They were amazing. I have been searching for something similar in the U.S. with no luck so far. Olives in U.S. deli are around $8 a pound in Italy it was under a dollar a pound.

Tuscany

It was cooler in Tuscany than Rome, so we decided to have some minestrone to warm us up while we waited for our afternoon ticket time for the Galleria dell’Accademia. We shared a table with an older couple from the United Kingdom and had a great time learning all about their frequent travels.