If you’re planning on visiting Italy, there are a few basic needs you will want to express in Italian. Most importantly (or perhaps second only to finding the public facilities), you need to know how to go about filling your empty stomach up with food. The first step? To tell someone that you’re hungry! In …
The most I’ve ever eaten in one sitting was at a wedding (matrimonio) in the south of Italy. I made the amateur mistake of filling up on the first course – which, to be fair, was a mouthwatering array of freshly caught seafood – only to discover that there were seven courses to go! By …
Before moving to Italy, I was completely unfamiliar with the finocchio, an aromatic yellow-flowered plant of the parsley family with feathery leaves and gentle aniseed flavour. It has since become one of my favourite winter vegetables! Finocchio is a masculine noun, and the plural is finocchi. un finocchioil finocchio dei finocchii finocchi There are many …
My favourite pizza topping of all time, with perhaps the exception of gorgonzola cheese, is the anchovy. This word translates as acciuga (feminine) in Italian, though it is usually seen in its plural form acciughe (anchovies). This small oily fish is found throughout the world’s oceans, and keeps very well in oil (acciughe sott’olio), brine …
The word for cherry in Italian is ciliegia (feminine). According to Treccani, the proper plural form is ciliegie, but up until the middle of the last century, the spelling ciliege was also fairly widespread. It comes from the Latin ceresia, which in turn derives from the Greek κερασος. The word for cherry tree is formed …
The word pappa (feminine, plural: pappe) in Italian traditionally refers to a thick minestra (soup) cooked in water, broth or milk, containing bread or semolina. It is used as food for newly weaned babies or for adults who have difficulty chewing. These days, pappa refers more broadly to any dish with a mushy texture, including …