In many countries Easter means chocolate. Bags of pastel-coloured mini eggs, tin-foil-wrapped chocolate bunnies and the classic hollow egg, ready to be smashed to pieces.
These cocoa-based confections are available in Italy – though not in the same aisle-filling quantity – but chocolate simply isn’t the go-to Easter treat it is in other parts of the world.
Bread, apart from being the staple food of Italian diet, has a very ancient history in the Bel Paese, which dates back to Roman times. Nutritious, fragrant and tasty, bread turns on the four senses and over the centuries has taken forms and types that have made it a fundamental food for our diet.
Dentists beware! Once the presents have been unwrapped, the turkey eaten and the new year rung in, a return to the surgery in January will almost certainly see the waiting room inundated with patients.
The festive season is of course one known for providing many a treat for those with a sweet tooth.
Let’s be clear since the beginning: were not the Chinese to invent pasta, hence it did not come to Italians thanks to Marco Polo. Instead, it was born in Arab Sicily, to then go up all over Italy. Passing through Naples and Genoa. This is the curious story of the dish symbolizing Italianness.