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Italian cooking encompasses a wide range of styles and specialties. Inside Italy, it is difficult to characterize any type of cooking as epitomizing all Italian cooking. Rather, each region has its own styles and specialties, from the white sauces and heavier meals in Northern Italy to the seafood dishes and red sauces of Southern Italy and everything in between.
What people outside of Italy have come to think of as "Italian Cooking" usually includes pizza and spaghetti. Jars of sauce and dried noodles at the back of the pantry signify an Italian meal when reconstituted on the stove. Real Italian cooking is so much more – fresh tomatoes at the peak of ripeness, dried and fresh basil from the garden, and homemade fettuccine and gnocchi along with a full bodied Chianti.
Olives are another staple of Italian cooking. Its oil as well as the olive itself are used in absolutely everything. Olive oil is often referred to as ‘Italian butter’ as natives dip their crusty bread into it after its been dusted with fresh ground pepper and sea salt. The olive also appears in some forms of bruschetta, an appetizer of toasted bread slices rubbed with garlic and topped with tomatoes and basil, as well as the puttanesca, a popular pasta dish.
Students interested in learning rich, sauce and meat based cooking styles will be quite happy studying Italian Cooking, but be advised: many of the recipes are work-intensive, sometimes taking as many as three days!
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