The word for a pepper in Italian is peperone (masculine, plural: peperoni). Despite most frequently being used to describe the bell pepper (otherwise known as the sweet pepper), it can denote almost any pepper in the Capsicum annuum family. The word derives from the Latin piper which actually denotes the condiment pepper rather than the …
An ingredient that serves as the basis for a wide variety of baked goods is flour, known as farina (feminine, plural: farine) in Italian. It derives from the Latin word of the same spelling and meaning. Flour is a powder made by grinding raw grains, roots, beans, nuts, or seeds. In addition to the standard …
Last night at the dinner table, our six month old son – who usually has the attention span of a goldfish – spent the entire duration of our meal fixated on a toy horse, analysing every hoof, hair and marking on its colourful body. To describe this kind of behaviour, there is a great verb …
In Italian, ciambella (feminine, plural: ciambelle) refers to any kind of round ring-shaped cake, pastry or cookie. From the American-style donut, also known as a ciambellina (lit: little ring), to the classic Italian ciambellone cake, pretty much any dessert with a hole in the middle falls into this category! In its very basic form, the …
In Italy, the polite way of saying that you are full is sazio after a meal if you are a man or sazia if you are a woman. (The respective plural forms are sazi and sazie.) It shares the same origin as the English words sate and satiated. Che mangiata! Sono proprio sazio! Era tutto …
The word chicco (masculine, plural: chicchi) in Italian primarily describes the grain from certain cereals. Some examples of chicchi include: grano (wheat) >> chicco di grano (grain of wheat) orzo (barley) >> chicco d’orzo (grain of barley) riso (rice) >> chicco di riso (grain of rice) mais (corn) >> chicco di mais (corn) Il mugnaio …