The Importance Of Italy's Culture

Every country has a certain culture that is recognizable by both its own country and from other countries. Culture is a truly complex word that has a multitude of different definitions. One way to describe culture is customs, beliefs, and attitude that makes one area different from another. There are heaps of different elements that amount to culture. Italy’s culture includes, food, architecture, landforms, traditions, military presence, and religion. As one will notice the elements of Italy 's culture is deeply rooted within its history. Many of the aged traditions and ways of life are still the same today in this historically rich country.

To understand Italy 's culture readers, need to be aware of the climate and

Italians, however, differ from Americans due to them traditionally eating their largest meal for lunch. A typical traditional lunch in Italy is a 3-course meal that includes, an appetizer, main course, and bread to finish off the meal. Subsequently this has changed due to more people working jobs during the day and not being able to eat their biggest meal in the middle of the day. If they do have to ration their proportions they still try to maintain the 3-course meal just of smaller size. Italians still have a large well rounded dinner as well just not as oversized as lunch. Dinner follows the same schedule of appetizer, main course, and bread to finish the meal. This time in Italy is spent connecting with friends and family while eating a delicious meal (Thornley, 2018). The types of food Italians eats varies upon the region of Italy. For an example, Zimmerman (2017) states, “In the North of Italy, fish, potatoes, rice, sausages, pork and different types of cheeses are the most common ingredients. Pasta dishes with tomatoes are popular, as are many kinds of stuffed pasta, polenta and risotto.” She also explains that the southern parts of Italy they eat more tomato based pasta dishes. In these dishes they include eggplants, artichokes, garlic, and many other in season vegetables. Central Italy eats the food that Americans typically think of, such as pizza, spaghetti, and

Italy’s complex war history has directly affected the culture of Italy. Mussolini Italy’s leader during world war II made many decisions that had the country questioning his judgment. Although most of the country disagreed with Mussolini he proceeded with his decision to align the country with Germany’s agenda (Saunders, 2010). Together the two countries fought many battles, two of the infamous battles of North Africa and Sicily. Italian forces invaded Abyssinia, Africa in 1935. The justification for this invasion was to improve Italian national prestige after Abyssinia defeated them in a previous battle decades prior (Saunders, 2010). The island of Sicily was captured and defeated by the Italians and Germans in 49 days. The United states and its allies defeated Italian forces in Sicily. This caused great embarrassment for the country. Finally, Mussolini was overthrown and Italy withdrew its alliance from Germany. (Saunders, 2010). Italy has many institutions and monasteries dedicated to remembering the hard times of World War