Starters

There is a popular misconception that the word ‘antipasto’ means the course that is eaten before the pasta dish. Rather, it is the food served before the ‘pasto’, or meal, begins and its purpose is to ‘stuzzicare l’appetito’, to stimulate the appetite. The attitude to the course varies enormously from region to region. The southern Italians tend to miss it out altogether, preferring to jump straight into ‘il primo’, the first course, while in the north, and particularly in Piedmont where I grew up, there are literally thousands of local variations.