The Flavors of Italy

Italian cuisine is defined by its native ingredients: its wealth of produce; its multiplicity of beans and grains; its abundance of oils, wines, and vinegars; and its livestock, from which a profusion of cheeses and cured meats have been made for centuries. These products intimately reflect the geographies, histories, and distinctive characteristics of the twenty regions in which they are produced.

While it is still true that eating in Italy operates as a kind of gustatory GPS—the regional differences are so evident in the cuisine that you can at the very least make an educated guess as to where you are by the food you’re eating—the homogeneity resulting from modern communication and global influences has not gone unnoticed. Pizza, for example, once the defining food of Naples, is now ubiquitous in Italy (and in the world). Conversely, the Alpine regions of Valle d’Aosta and Trentino–Alto Adige, once isolated by their treacherous geographies, now have access to products that were never historically part of their cuisines. Italian chefs, intrigued by contact with cuisines and technologies so radically different from their own, have begun successfully and creatively to incorporate these influences into their cooking.