Italian Cooking Terminology | Grico's Classic Cuisine (2024)

FAQs

What is classic Italian cuisine? ›

The Mediterranean diet forms the basis of Italian cuisine, rich in pasta, fish, fruits and vegetables. Cheese, cold cuts and wine are central to Italian cuisine, and along with pizza and coffee (especially espresso) form part of Italian gastronomic culture.

Quanto Basta: This phrase roughly translates to “just enough.” It is used to describe how much of an ingredient should be added. It is essentially the Italian version of “to taste.”

Onions, celery, and carrots are considered “the holy trinity” for good reason: When cooked low-and-slow in olive oil, their combined flavors form an umami-packed, versatile base for any number of dishes.

While it may seem like a harmless pairing, Italians tend to use them separately in their dishes. Garlic is used to add a pungent flavour to dishes, while onions add a sweet and slightly savoury flavour. Mixing the two can result in an overpowering and unbalanced taste that can ruin your dish.

The classic cuisine prizes richness, suavity, balance, and elegant presentation. Unlike a peasant or bourgeois cuisine, in which bold, earthy tastes and textures are allowable and even desirable, grande cuisine aims at a mellow harmony and an appearance of artfulness and order.

Pizza. Besides pasta, pizza is perhaps the most popular and recognized Italian food. Pizza is considered a national symbol representing Italy to the rest of the world, so much so that UNESCO has acknowledged pizza as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Homemade tomato sauce is a very versatile recipe and there is no doubt that it is the holy grail of authentic Italian cooking. From north to south, the basic sugo di pomodoro can be found adorning everything from pasta to gnocchi to rice, and it also forms an excellent basis for more complicated recipes.

When Italians cook, they start with something called a battuto, a mince of ordinary vegetables like onions, celery, carrots and garlic, that create a foundation for extraordinary flavors that really make a dish come together. These ingredients are often referred to as the four evangelists of Italian cooking.

The traditional Italian meal is structured in 4 parts: antipasti (starters), primo (pasta, that includes dishes such as risotto), secondo (a meat dish, including fish), and dolce (dessert).

If you're a parmesan lover, though, Why Italians explains that it's okay to grate it on almost every type of pasta, except fish and seafood dishes like linguine alle vongole, spaghetti allo scoglio, and gnocchi ai gamberi. This is just one of many Italian food customs, however.

Do Italians eat celery? ›

Today it's rarely used on its own. Instead, it plays a leading role in Italian soffritto, the flavorsome mixture of chopped vegetables which usually includes onion, carrot, celery, garlic, parsley and often diced lardo or pancetta, and in mirepoix, the French starter of onion + carrot + celery with butter.

The guiding principles of Italian style can be summarized by four qualities: sobriety, sensuality, elegance, and informality. Although they seem to be incompatible, these qualities actually balance each other out. Most importantly, the Italian style is rooted in slow fashion.