Introduction:

Annie: What’s up guys? Welcome back to our podcast, “Food Away From Home (World Tour)”, with your hosts Annie, Cece, and Shiv. In this episode, we will be exploring the variety of popular foods and sweets from Italian cultures, as well as the differences between the Northern and Southern parts of Italy. Now we'll hand this off to Cece.

Cece: Thank you Annie! Being Italian, born in Rome, I can tell you that Italy is a place not-to-be missed. Italy is a bright, unique, and amazing place, with many different cultures, and traditions, making it special, and different from other parts of the world. In this segment, we will be talking about the Northern parts of Italy, versus the Southern parts of Italy, and what makes them similar and different. Now, we will hand this off to Shiv:

1. Shiv: In Northern Italy, the foods vary more from pasta, meats and fish, as well as more heavy, and filling dishes, due to the cold climate.
2. They use a lot of butter, cream, and cheese. Fun fact, “cheese” in Italian is called “Formaggio”.
3. They also use a lot of grains, such as rice and corn. These ingredients help with forming “Polenta”, a potato and grain dish with red sauce toppings, very good, and “Risotto”, a bowl of rice with any choice of fillings.
4. Lots of herbs are used as well, going from rosemary to basil, and thyme as well.
5. They are used to add more flavor to the dishes, and make them more aromatic and fragrant.
6. Northern places in Italy can include the mountainside, “Alpi” or “Dolomite”, which are very important and touristic mountain ranges in Italy. Some mountain ranges and Northern places in Italy also are very close to Austria, making the people there bilingual and cross-cultural, due to how they are both Austrian and Italian. Meran and Tyrol, are one of these places
7. Cece’s been to Meran, and personally, it is one of her favorite places to visit when going to the Northern part of Italy.
8. It is part Austrian and Italian, so you see people that speak Austrian and Italian as well as English.
9. It consists of certain meats called “Wiener Scnitzel”, which is a breaded, as well as fried, veal cutlets, which is meat from younger calves of cows. It is very good, and perfect for a winter-weather meal.
10. There is also a pasta meal called “Spaetzle”, which is a type of pasta with shorter, and smaller pieces of pasta dough making it up, and it goes very well with plain and sausages, spinach filled spaetzle with small pieces of bacon or ham, and also with plain spaetzle with small pieces of fresh caught salmon. Spaetzle are known for going with plain ingredients, and would not go very well with red sauce. Spaetzle are Cece’s favorite pasta meals when going to the Northern parts of Italy.
11. In the Northern areas there are more focuses on meats, such as cows, calves, lamb, rabbit, pig, and sheep.
12. When going to Italy, and when it comes to having a nice filling meal on a cold day, you should definitely take a trip to Northern Italy, and visit Meran or Tyrol....