An Italian Kitchen
Every culture’s cuisine has a few basic ingredients that are staples for a lot of their dishes, and these ingredients are usually traditionally native to the area or became popular with early international trade. For example, Japanese cooking uses rice or soy sauce in a lot of recipes, Mexican recipes use a lot of beans and corn, and Greek cuisine includes a lot of olive oil, tomatoes, and herbs. So, what are the most important ingredients to keep in an Italian kitchen?
Italy has embraced the use of tomatoes since international trade became popular. They originally came from south America and even though they weren’t always native to the country, they are a staple of the cuisine. You can probably think of ten Italian dishes off the top of your head right now that include tomatoes! Spaghetti, lasagna, caprese salad, and so many more recipes use this fruit. Of course, tomatoes are perfectly paired with pasta, which is one of the namesakes of Italian cooking. There are hundreds of different shapes and sizes of noodles out there, and they’re pretty simple to make. Pasta noodles are made with flour, water, salt and sometimes egg. Noodles are the base for all the amazing sauces that Italian cooks have thought up over the years and will always be a staple of the cuisine. Added into a lot of these pasta dishes is olive oil, a staple for cooking vegetables, adding in dressings and sauces, and even for dipping bread in. Olives are native to Italy and have historically been used in the cultures cooking. Today, Italy is still the second largest exporter of olives in the world. One last food that is native to Italy we want to mention is grapes. The country is famed for its great wine and beautiful vineyards. Although wine wasn’t first created in Italy, the countries climate makes it the perfect place to grow all the different varieties of grapes, which made it one of the most popular wine producing countries. And as we all can agree, a glass of wine is the perfect thing to pair with your favorite Italian dinner.
We could go on for hours about another hundred ingredients that are used in Italian cooking including herbs like parsley, sage, thyme, ingredients like garlic, onion, cheese, and mushrooms. But for now we hope you give their ingredients a try in your next homemade Italian dish! And maybe next time you come into Zeppoli’s; you’ll notice these same ingredients in your dinner! Until next time!
- Zeppoli’s marketing team
