The holidays are the perfect time to sample new and exotic dishes from around the world. Maybe this year, you might want to try some of the great holiday foods from Italy. Maybe you want to try something different this year and love Italian food, or maybe you've been invited to spend the holidays with Italian friends or are fortunate enough to actually be spending the holidays in Italy.
That could be the dream trip of a lifetime to be able to spend the holidays in that fabulous part of the world. But if you are making special foods for the holiday, you would surely want to know which Italian foods are appropriate and traditional?
The biggest holiday tradition is Christmas and like many other places in Europe, starts on Christmas Eve. The traditional Christmas Eve meal doesn't include a lot of the typical Italian food that foreigners may be familiar with. That's because the Italians observe a type of symbolic fast which actually equates to more of a light dinner.
This means that there will be no Italian dishes that includes the typical meats, like spiced beef or pork. Instead, the Italian food will be centered more around seafood including fish, snails, and even frogs. And although this might sound a little more French than Italian, these are excellent holiday opportunities to sample some traditional Italian culinary delights that is hard to find outside of Italy.
On Christmas Day itself, however, the food may be a little more familiar to most people. The first course is a very well known Italian food, tortellini. This pasta dish filled with a fine and tasty meat mixture is more in keeping with what most people think of when they start thinking Italian food.
After the meal, comes the most important part of the day - dessert. There are a couple of traditional cakes, either panettone or pandoro. And which you are serving depends on what part of Italy you are in or from. If you're in Milan it will be panettone. This cake like bread takes days to make and is often found in the US in specialty shops. The other traditional cake is pandoro or "bread of gold", a sweetened bread that is often made to look like a mountain complete with white sugar icing giving it a snowy finish. And because neither is overpoweringly sweet, it is quite possible to fill up completely with these tasty treats.
Christmas is a great time to try out all kinds of new treats, and Italian food certainly has its share of delightful Christmas foods and goodies. And why would you not want to try these out, after all, good food is meant to be good fun.
That could be the dream trip of a lifetime to be able to spend the holidays in that fabulous part of the world. But if you are making special foods for the holiday, you would surely want to know which Italian foods are appropriate and traditional?
The biggest holiday tradition is Christmas and like many other places in Europe, starts on Christmas Eve. The traditional Christmas Eve meal doesn't include a lot of the typical Italian food that foreigners may be familiar with. That's because the Italians observe a type of symbolic fast which actually equates to more of a light dinner.
This means that there will be no Italian dishes that includes the typical meats, like spiced beef or pork. Instead, the Italian food will be centered more around seafood including fish, snails, and even frogs. And although this might sound a little more French than Italian, these are excellent holiday opportunities to sample some traditional Italian culinary delights that is hard to find outside of Italy.
On Christmas Day itself, however, the food may be a little more familiar to most people. The first course is a very well known Italian food, tortellini. This pasta dish filled with a fine and tasty meat mixture is more in keeping with what most people think of when they start thinking Italian food.
After the meal, comes the most important part of the day - dessert. There are a couple of traditional cakes, either panettone or pandoro. And which you are serving depends on what part of Italy you are in or from. If you're in Milan it will be panettone. This cake like bread takes days to make and is often found in the US in specialty shops. The other traditional cake is pandoro or "bread of gold", a sweetened bread that is often made to look like a mountain complete with white sugar icing giving it a snowy finish. And because neither is overpoweringly sweet, it is quite possible to fill up completely with these tasty treats.
Christmas is a great time to try out all kinds of new treats, and Italian food certainly has its share of delightful Christmas foods and goodies. And why would you not want to try these out, after all, good food is meant to be good fun.
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