Funny Italian Food Names

Orecchiette

Literally: little ears

Orecchiette are one of Apulia’s most iconic pasta shapes: small, round, and concave just like tiny ears. To make them, you just need a small piece of dough, a quick drag across the surface, and a flip inside out. Which sounds simple in theory, but it can be a bit tricky in practice.

Head to Bari Vecchia, the old town of Bari, and you’ll see the real experts at work: local women sitting outside their front doors, shaping orecchiette by hand at impressive speed!

Linguine

Literally: little tongues

Linguine look like spaghetti that someone gently sat on. They are long and flat enough to remind us of little tongues.

They come from Liguria, the coastal region in northern Italy home to the Cinque Terre, and they’re traditionally paired with pesto or seafood sauces. 

Gomiti

Literally: elbows

Gomiti are short, tubular pasta pieces with a distinctive bend that makes them look like a tiny elbow. And just like a real elbow, that curve has a purpose: it’s what makes them so good at catching all the sauce, down to the very last drop.

You might also hear them called pipe (pipes) or pipette (little pipes), because their shape also recalls a pipe bowl.

Capelli d’angelo

Literally: angel hair

Capelli d’angeloare a pasta shape so thin and delicate that comparing them to regular human hair felt insufficient. Nope, only angel hair would do. After all, they are long, super light, and golden yellow, which is generally what we imagine angel hair to look like (totally unverified, but we’re going with it).

I especially enjoy them in brodo (in broth), but they can also be paired with different sauces.

Ditali

Literally: thimbles

These are short, tube-shaped pasta pieces that look like ditali, the little thimbles used for sewing. If you look at one closely, the resemblance is immediate: same cylindrical shape and compact size, just without the closed tip.

The word ditale comes from dito, meaning “finger,” because at the end of the day, a thimble is a little finger protector. This means ditali are, technically, tiny pasta fingers. Right on theme.

This pasta comes in different sizes: ditalini are the smaller version (as the -ini suffix suggests), while ditaloni are the bigger ones. Personally, I think they are absolutely perfect in a hearty minestrone.

Saltimbocca

Literally: Jumps in the mouth

Ok, we’re done with pasta shapes for now. A staple of Roman cuisine, saltimbocca are made by layering veal slices with prosciutto crudo and a fresh sage leaf, pinning it all together with a toothpick, and pan-frying it in white wine. 

This time, the name isn’t describing what the food looks like, but rather the irresistible urge to eat it. Because the result is so delicious it practically leaps off the plate and straight into our mouth, hence the name saltimbocca, from saltare (to jump) and bocca (mouth). Yep, there is still a body part involved after all.

Sanguinaccio

Literally: bloody mess

Sanguinaccio is a dark, brownish salami made with pork offal, pork blood, and various spices, similar to British black pudding. And before you wrinkle your nose, this is a perfect example of one of Italy’s sacred culinary principles: del maiale non si butta via niente (you don’t throw any part of the pig away).

In Naples, though, sanguinaccio is something different: a rich chocolate cream made with cocoa, sugar, and flour, served with chiacchiere during Carnival season. Traditionally, a little pig’s blood was added to the mix, but nowadays it’s more about the chocolate (no complaints from me!). Here’s an iconic scene from the movie Benvenuti al Sud where it’s served for breakfast: watch here.

Sangue di Giuda

Literally: Judas’ blood

You’ve been waiting for this one since the introduction, be honest! Sangue di Giuda is a DOC wine from Oltrepò Pavese, a charming wine region just south of Milan. It’s sweet, intensely red, and pleasantly sparkling. 

There are a few legends behind the name Sangue di Giuda. One tells of a repentant Judas sent back to Earth to do good deeds. He ended up in Oltrepò Pavese, where he saved the local harvest from a devastating vine disease, and the grateful locals named their wine after him.

The most convincing explanation is much simpler, though: this wine is a traitor. Sweet and easy to drink, it’s easy to forget how much you’ve had… until you do, and by then, you’ve been betrayed. Truly the perfect name.

Tette delle Monache

Literally: Nuns’ breasts

Beneath an innocent dusting of icing sugar hides a soft sponge cake filled with a chantilly cream so luscious it’s sinfully good, which is quite the irony for a dessert born in a convent.

Yes, because le tette delle monache are a single-portion pastry first created in an Apulian convent. As the story goes, a nun’s sponge cakes went so wrong that a passing local, speaking in a thick dialect, took one and called it exactly what it looked like: una tetta (a breast)!

In Sicily, a similar dessert has become the symbolic sweet of Sant’Agata, patron saint of Catania. She was a young Christian noblewoman who refused the advances of a Roman proconsul, and in a brutal act of revenge, he ordered her breasts to be cut off.

Cazzilli

Literally: Little willies

Cazzilli are one of Palermo’s most delicious street foods: crispy potato croquettes eaten either on their own or stuffed into a mafalda, the classic Sicilian sesame roll. 

As for the name, the shape is fairly self-explanatory: round, elongated, like a little sausage. I’ll say no more.

Capricciosa (pizza)

Literally: Capricious

Black olives, artichoke hearts, cooked ham, and mushrooms, thrown together with the kind of confidence that makes you think there was a plan all along. But there wasn’t.

The story goes that in the 1930s a creative Roman pizzaiolo put together a pizza starting from a classic Margherita and adding whatever happened to be in the pantry that day. And a pizza born this way, entirely on a whim, couldn’t be called anything else.

Capricciosa (salad)

Literally: Capricious

Besides the pizza, we also have a capricciosa salad, and once again, the name comes down to the same thing: a delightfully quirky combination of ingredients. This time, though, we’re talking about finely julienned vegetables, prosciutto cotto, and Emmental cheese, all generously dressed with mayonnaise.

Believed to have originated in Piedmont, insalata capricciosa is a cold antipasto that often appears on festive tables across Italy, usually alongside a generous spread of cured meats. A true classic.

Arrabbiata 

Literally: Angry

With a name like this, you can guess what to expect. Arrabbiata is a classic pasta sauce from Lazio: tomatoes, plenty of garlic, and a generous amount of red chili pepper (either fresh or dried), finished with fresh parsley and grated pecorino romano cheese. Its most famous pairing is with penne rigate, but you can prepare it with whatever pasta shape you prefer.

The name is due to the fact that when the sauce is so spicy, it leaves your face red, much like someone who’s furious. For a full immersion, there’s an annual arrabbiata festival on August 16th in Ponte Alto, the village near Rieti that some consider the birthplace of this pasta sauce.

Puttanesca

Literally: Whore-style

And now a dish that might make your face flush too, though not from the spice. Puttanesca is a bold pasta sauce made with tomatoes, garlic, olives, capers, and anchovies, and the name has a bit of explaining to do.

There are a number of stories around its origin. One takes us to the Spanish Quarters in Naples, once home to many brothels. One day, the owner of one such establishment supposedly came up with a pasta dish to keep clients energised and named it with a colourful tribute to the ladies who worked there. Non fa una piega, as we say in Italy — it all makes perfect sense.

Another story brings us to the island of Ischia in the 1950s, at the restaurant ‘O Rangio Fellone. One night, a group of hungry friends turned up late and asked the owner to prepare una puttanata qualunque (roughly meaning “whatever the hell you’ve got”). The result was a success, and the name stuck as a reminder of how the dish was born.

Brutti ma buoni

Literal translation: Ugly but good

Brutti ma buoni are crunchy hazelnut biscuits born in Piedmont in the 19th century. Visually, they are not the prettiest sweets you’ll ever see: they appear rather shapeless, as if they had a bit of an accident before reaching the oven.

And yet, the flavour and crunch are absolutely worth it. Which is exactly why, rather than pretending otherwise, whoever named them just told the plain truth: ugly, sure, but so good!

Minestra maritata

Literally: Married soup

La minestra maritata is a festive staple of Neapolitan tradition. The name comes from the union (the matrimonio — wedding) between vegetables and meat.

A first version was apparently already on the table in ancient Rome, but the current dish developed during the Spanish rule. It even got a mention by Matilde Serao, the first Italian woman to found and direct a daily newspaper, who wrote about it in Il ventre di Napoli (the belly of Naples), describing it as a dish for the wealthy.

Minestra della vedova

Literally: Widow’s soup

Naturally, we also have the widow version. While the married soup celebrates the union of meat and vegetables, the widow’s soup is traditionally made without meat, hence the name: a soup widowed of its most important ingredient.

Minestra della vedova is a humble dish from Romagna, likely dating back to the Second World War, a time when nothing went to waste and what was left in the pantry dictated the menu. Onions, potatoes, a little homemade pasta, stale bread: if it was there, it went in the pan.

Pasta dei cornuti 

Literally: Cuckolds’ pasta

Cornuto (literally, “horned one”) is the word we use for someone whose partner is cheating on them. And if we have a soup for the married and a soup for the widowed, naturally we also have a dish for the cornuti!

The logic is simple: a partner who has been otherwise occupied during the day doesn’t exactly have time to cook an elaborate meal by the time you get home. So they throw together the quickest pasta possible, with just butter and parmesan. 

This is one of my favorite comfort foods, and I’ve always known it simply as pasta in bianco (literally, “pasta in white”). Finding out its other name was quite the surprise!

Spaghetti all’assassina

Literallly: Assassin spaghetti

Consider the name a fair warning. The spaghetti are cooked directly in an intensely spicy tomato sauce until they char a bit. The result is crispy and seriously hot, unlike any other pasta dish.

Spaghetti all’assassinawas born in Bari in 1967, when Chef Enzo Francavilla, owner of the osteria Al Sorso Preferito, invented it on the spot for two customers who wanted something they’d never eaten before. When the meal was over, the Chef asked if they’d enjoyed it. One of the customers leaned back and replied: Buonissimi, però sono assassini! (Delicious, but they’re killers!). Name sorted!

Strozzapreti

Literally: Priest stranglers

Strozzapreti are short, twisted pasta rolls made with just water and flour, no eggs. And that last detail is the entire point. 

Born during the Papal State rule, the name is openly anticlerical. At the time, priests would go door to door collecting tributes from local families, eggs included. Left without their main ingredient, the women improvised with just water and flour, and while kneading the dough, they would curse the priest under their breath, wishing he would strozzarsi (choke) on the eggs he’d just taken. Anger and frustration all kneaded into a pasta shape!

Bastardo

Literal translation: Bastard

After priest-strangling pasta and assassin’s spaghetti, let’s close with some delicious cheeses. First up, we have one bold enough to introduce itself as a bastard!

The full name is Bastardo del Grappa and it’s a traditional cheese from the Veneto region, produced in the mountain pastures of Mount Grappa. Rich and intensely flavoured, it was once made with any milk that was available — cow, goat, sheep, whatever the pasture had to offer. In Italian, bastardo also means something of mixed or uncertain origins, so it couldn’t be more fitting for a cheese made from whatever milk was around. These days it’s made with cow’s milk only, but the name was too good to change.

Puzzone

Literal translation: the stinky one

The name may not be the most inviting, but this is another excellent cheese from Italy. The full name is Puzzone di Moena, from the mountain village of Moena in Trentino Alto-Adige where it’s produced during the summer months.

The distinctive smell comes from the rind, which is washed regularly with warm salted water during aging. This creates a protective coating that prevents external contamination and gives the cheese its unique flavour. A useful technique for sure, but with a rather fragrant side effect!