Italian Food Customs and Traditions

Italian food customs are many and they vary throughout the peninsula but there is consensus over some rules of Italian food culture. These are some of the Italian food culture rules accepted all over our country.

Meal Times

Food

Timing of meals is crucial. Lunch is served at 1.00 Pm and dinner at 8.00 Pm. In northern Italy it can be a tiny earlier and a tiny later towards the south but don't dream of eating at 4.00, the bistro kitchens are accomplished until dinner time.

Italian Food Menu

A complete menu is composed of an "antipasto, primo, secondo, contorno, dolce, frutta e formaggi". Nobody is capable of such a feat on an commonplace day. Most meals are composed of two courses, a "primo" (pasta or rice) and/or a "secondo" (meat or fish) and a "contorno" (side dish).

Never in the Same Plate

Every dish is served in a distinct plate, mixing is strongly discouraged.

Salad

Salad is thought about a side dish and, even if you order it as a starter, your invite will be probably ignored.

Fruit and Cheese

Meals are generally accomplished with fresh fruits, often cheeses and coffee.

Cappuccino

Cappuccino is served only for breakfast, never at the end of a meal. If you can't resist the impulse of ruining a good meal with milk, ask for a "caffe' macchiato", coffee with just a drop of milk. It is thought about an accepted alternative to cappuccino.

Drinking Milk

Drinking milk at lunch or dinner is simply unheard of, it will kill the flavor of whatever you are eating and the relationship with the waiter.

Drinks

Acceptable drinks while a meal are wine, mineral water, beer and, only for kids, sodas.

No Cheese on Seafood

Never sprinkle or grate cheese on seafood or fish. The strong cheese flavor would murder the seafood aroma. Try it only at your own risk, most restaurants will decline any accountability over the results.

Soffritto

Most of the best Italian dishes start with a "soffritto". It is generally made with onion, carrot and celery, finely cut and lightly fried in a tiny olive oil.

Italian Food Customs and Traditions

Italian Food Culture

The Italian food culture concerns not only what we see at Italian tables or in a rich Italian cafeteria menu.

It is something much deeper in Italians' Dna.

Food

Italians have some beliefs that go beyond instruction or tradition.

Concerning pasta

An easy example could be the pasta shapes and their seasonings. Considering that among dry pasta (the ones you ordinarily buy inside paper or plastic bags that last for long) the difference is only the shape of it, nothing else, the shape itself is something very important for Italians.

There's a traditional pasta sauce method from Roma region called Pasta all'amatriciana (it's a tasty sauce made with tomatoes and bacon). ordinarily it's served using the bucatini pasta (kind of huge spaghetti with a hole in its middle). An Italian woman was disgusted hearing her hairdress telling her colleague that beloved it with short pasta. She said: "Don't ask me why. It just is as it is. Amatriciana must go with long pasta. How can one imagine of cooking it with short pasta?" The same goes for pasta with oil and garlic (aglio e olio), you probably will never see it served using any other pasta that isn't spaghetti.

Cappuccino

A lot of habitancy colse to the world drink coffee and milk. In Italy, habitancy use to drink cappuccino - a coffee and milk with addition of milk foam.

All colse to the world habitancy drink coffee and milk whenever feels like doing it. Italians will never ask for a cappuccino in the evening! Why? It is just as it is. It's not time to have a cappuccino. Cappuccino is for breakfast!

Italians do not accept man who asks a cappuccino after, or even worse, together with dinner. They positively twist their nose when they see man doing it.

Drinking

In Italy there are bars everywhere. There are many small cities, having about 1,500 inhabitants that have about 20 bars.

It happens because drinking in Italy is linked with greetings. When an Italian meet a friend, it's natural to "drink something together".

If it happens to serve a drink to man seat besides you, never turn the jar or the bottle against the natural way of your hand. For example, if you have the jar in your right hand, the glass must be on the left side, never behind, on the right side of your right hand. Otherwise it may not bring good luck.

Meals

In many countries it's tasteless to eat a salad as entrance.

Not in Italy.

Italians eat salad as a side plate for the second dish. Now you can find some traveler restaurants in main cities that suggest rich salads for the tourists...but Italians never ask for them!

Italians respects lunch time. If you come to visit Italy and want to have lunch, pay attention to restaurants' conclusion times. ordinarily after 2:30pm the kitchens are all ended and you'll have to eat a sandwich. If an Italian is traveling exterior Italy, he will probably look for a cafeteria while lunch time. If he doesn't or cannot find one, and finds one at 3:00pm, he'll probably say that is not hungry anymore, that he uses to eat at that time otherwise he loses his hunger.

Italians trust their food. While most of the tourists look for local food, Considering it part of the vacation, it's very tasteless to see Italians seeing for Italian restaurants while abroad. They seem to be afraid of new and different food.

They begin to open themselves to new food when go exterior Italy more often and learn to appreciate and trust foreign cuisines.

Other than trusting and loving their own food, Italians hate when habitancy try to mix other food cultures with Italian ones. An example? Never add ketchup to a pasta dish! You cannot imagine how your Italian friend will stare at you if you try to do so.

The involving in all these is that they don't do it for being presumptuous, but they positively believe you're wasting your taste. Italian culture still has a lot of "musts" that go with generations that just result it without knowing why it is done in this or that way.

Italian Food Culture