Category Archives: Italian Food

Why Fresh Mozzarella Isn’t Refrigerated

Walk down the aisles of your local supermarket and you will likely find something claiming to be mozzarella in the refrigerated section. Even in Italy, you can find little plastic bags filled with water and a ball of white cheese sitting in the fridge. But the truth is that most Italians would never dream of […]

Claudia’s Feast: Lunch at Agritourismo Parco dei Cimini near Viterbo

Most people think of Rome and imagine the empty ruins of the Forum or the aerial grandeur of St. Peter’s Basilica, but Rome is also filled with the sounds of screeching trams, car honks, and a never-ending stream of ambulances. If you want to get away from it all, you can retreat to an agriturismo […]

Farmer’s Markets in Rome: Speaking to Campagna Amica’s Pietro

man cutting prosciutto by hand at a farmer's market in Rome

Where did you last do your grocery shopping? Chances are, you probably went to a supermarket–I know I did, and so did many Italians. In 2016, there were some 30,000 supermarkets in Italy, and that number has only grown since.  Traditionally, Italians did their shopping at mercati rionali, open neighborhood markets usually held in the main square […]

How Food Labels with DOP and IGP Help Preserve Italian Culinary Heritage

Note from the Editor: I have a Masters Degree in Food Policy and it still took me years to decipher Italian food labels because they seem to be stamped and stickered with all kinds of abbreviations. However, there is a rhyme and reason behind the madness of exactly what DOP and IGP (and all of […]