The Importance Of Eating In Italy

To be fair, I am already not used to eating alone when at home so this is why it may bother me more than other Americans. As my family is Italian-American, we always eat meals together and it would be considered bizarre to cook separate dinners and eat at separate times. If need be, we simply eat dinner later. This can be 9:00 or 10:00 at night. This helped prepare me to study in Italy as most Italians eat at 9:00 or 10:00 at night. It is considered bizarre to eat dinner before this time. One time I was getting hungry around 8 pm and my roommates made fun of me saying 8 pm is way too early to eat dinner. While visiting my roommate Marco’s family in Grottaglie, Puglia breakfast, lunch, and dinner were eaten together (his brother and father would eat together earlier than everyone else when they had to go to work). While it is becoming less common in northern Italy it is still very common

The most common pasta in Puglia is orecchiette (little ear pasta) and rape (plural of rapa which is a vegetable similar to broccoli). However, unlike other types of non-fresh pasta orecchiette is special because it is exclusively made with wheat and cannot be made with flour. It is cooked in boiling water like all other pasta but it is one of the quickest cooking type of pastas. Pugliese people also prefer to cook pasta with seafood rather than northern regions like Emilia-Romagna which prefer read meat. More seafood is available in the south while beef is more available in the north. A typical Pugliese food that people snack on is called taralli (a spicy variety is available). The best way to describe it is little crunchy rings. I have realized that when some people claim Italian food is “boring” that they do not truly understand Italian food. It is almost impossible to learn every dish that can be cooked and considered Italian