Italian street food

Italian street food

Italy
is well-known all over the world also in virtue of its cuisine: famous
restaurants and cooks are certainly not missing in Italy, and Italian typical dishes
are appreciated everywhere.

Normal
0
14

false
false
false

MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) }

/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:”Tabella normale”;
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:”";
mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0cm;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:”Times New Roman”;
mso-ansi-language:#0400;
mso-fareast-language:#0400;
mso-bidi-language:#0400;}

Italian
gastronomic tradition does not only include “restaurant dishes”, or dishes that
need a complex preparation and are to be eaten while sitting at a table, but
also many kinds of street food, which are different in each region. Street food
is very appreciated both by Italians, who like its traditional and intense
flavour, its authenticity, its cheapness, and the possibility that it gives to
eat quickly, and by those tourists that wish to discover every aspect of the
places they are visiting, gastronomic culture included, and who prefer to
shorten the time dedicated to eat in order to immerse themselves in visiting
the city.

From north
to south, all Italian regions offer different kinds of food, which are part of
the local history and tradition, and which still survive, sometimes with some
difficulties, in spite of the relentless advance of fast-foods and standardized
food tasting the same in every part of the world. But if you are visiting Italy
it is worthwhile to stop and have a snack in one of the kiosks or bars that
sell traditional street food typical of the region you are visiting: besides
having something tasty and cheap to eat, you can taste, in the true sense of
the word, a piece of the local culture.

Imagining to
plan a tour focused on Italian
street food, we should add innumerable stops, and
making a list of all the typical Italian snacks is not possible. If we start
from the north, we may certainly stop in Liguria,
and taste the famous “focaccia Genovese” (flat oven-baked bread from Genoa), which has been
part of the history of the region since the 16th century. Nowadays you can find
different versions of it, all excellent. In the north, but in the eastern part
of Italy, a stop in Venice certainly has surprises in store for us: on the one
hand it is more and more difficult to taste the “fritolin” (fried fish cones),
on the other hand you can still stop in a “bacaro” (typical Venetian bar) and
corner “cicchetti” (little snacks prepared with different ingredients, cold
cuts, boiled eggs, pickles, anchovies…) accompanying them with a glass of wine.

Going a
little further south we find many kiosks offering “piadine romagnole” (Italian
flatbread typical of Emilia-Romagna, a region which is also known for
“tigelle”, “gnocco fritto” and many other fast dishes), while in Tuscany the
street food par excellence is “lampredotto” (cattle stomach cooked with
tomatoes, onion, parsley
and celery and served as a sandwich filling). In Latium you must try the “porchetta
di Ariccia” (pork slowly roasted with herbs and wild fennel) and
“supplì”, balls of rice with tomato or meat sauce, while in Campania, notably
in Naples, an important role is played by pizzas and “focacce”, like the
“parigina” (flat oven-baked bread with ham and mozzarella). Our short
gastronomic tour ends in Sicily,
a region that has a lot to offer as far as street food is concerned: from
“arancini”, fried rice balls filled with meat sauce, mozzarella and peas, to
“pani ca meusa”, i.e. spleen sandwiches among the most appreciated and famous ones.

Article Tags:
Street Food

Tags: Food, Italian, street