I Can Cook Cooking is a rewarding and lifelong skill With some basic cooking knowledge a little practice and great recipes you can cook entire meals Cooking for your family and friends is a fun activity and a mouthwatering meal can take you to places that you have never been Are you ready to have fun cooking and eating A World of Food Every day people all over the world cook delicious and nutritious meals What they cook depends not only on the ingredients available to them but also on their country's food culture or cooking style A country s style of cooking is shaped over time by its culture economy climate and the land itself Cook Your Way Around the World You can explore the great cuisines of the world in your own kitchen The special flavors and wonderful aromas of a country's food culture come from fresh ingredients and particular spices or herbs which you can find in your local supermarket or a specialty store Share with your family and friends authentic dishes from different countries that look great and taste even better You can cook mouthwatering food from different countries by following a few simple steps Some recipes involve combining just a couple of
Italian Food Italian food Worldwide Italian recipes have traveled around the world with migrating Italians Italian food is famous for its hearty nature distinctive beginning in the 1800s CE These days flavors and aromas and rich colors It is also easy it is easy to find lasagna in London and and fun to cook gnocchi in Brazil In the United States U S pizza comes in at least three Crowd pleasing Cooking different forms deep dish in Italian pizza gelato and pasta are loved all over the world These foods Chicago thin in New York and and others developed as a result of Italy's unique history and landscape square cut in St Louis Isolated city states and even villages developed their own recipes for regional dishes based on simple but delicious ingredients found locally Cooking Italian Food at Home You'll be surprised at how easy it is to cook an authentic Italian meal at home This book has seven recipes that you can follow to cook a meal on your own or with a little help from an adult Some of the recipes don't even involve cooking The recipes can be adapted to suit special diets too EURO NORTH ITALY ASIA AMERICA AFRICA AMERICA AUSTRALI Mainland Italy is a boot shaped peninsula located in southern Europe Gelato Italy's version of ice cream is a favorite treat of many children
Italian Food Basics Traditions and Styles For many hundreds of years Italy was a divided land ruled by various groups of people These people introduced their cooking traditions and styles to different areas of Italy and though they may now be long gone their influence can still be seen in Italian cooking today CA ITAL IT Different traditions have influenced the many types of italian breads today such as pane di Altamura Left from Apulia grissini center from Piedmont and pane carasau right from the island of Sardinia Early Cultures Italian cooking is rooted in the ancient Etruscan culture 700 100 BCE from which focaccia and perhaps pasta originated The huge long lasting Roman Empire 400 BCE 400 ce brought to Italy baking skills from Greece and foreign ingredients such as Egyptian watermelon Later Influences From 900 CE Arabs from Syria and North Africa brought with them lemons spinach coffee rice and couscous The great trading city state of Venice brought in spices and sugar from Asia which were used to flavor Italian desserts In the 1500s CE important ingredients arrived from North and South America Today it is hard to imagine Italian cooking without tomatoes for pizza corn for polenta and chocolate for desserts Migrants from former Italian colonies in North Africa have added their own flavors
he Myth About Pasta Pasta did not develop from noodles that the famous Regional Food explorer Marco Polo brought back from China its likeliest influences are the dried noodles Arabs From the wheat and dairy based cooking of the north to the fragrant tomato and olive oil based cooking of the south every Italian region offers something different The map below breaks Italy up into four main regions and discusses the ingredients and special foods that are popular in each brought as a staple food when they invaded Sicily in the 900s CE North Polenta corn meal is traditionally served with many dishes Valle d Aosta and Lombardy are famous for cheeses such as gorgonzola and be paese while truffles a fungus highly prized by chefs and food lovers grow in the forests of Piedmont Focaccia is a Ligurian speciality and fish such as trout come from the region's lakes and the waters off the northern coasts Venice and its surrounding areas are famous for seafood and vegetable risottos pictured SLOVENIA NORTH FRANCE South Southern Italian cooking includes simple dishes traditionally eaten by the poor such as pasta e fagioli pasta with beans pictured and rich extravagant food such as zeppola a doughnut from Apulia Sheep provide the main meat here but seafood is also popular Summer vegetables include tomatoes and eggplants Onion and garlic are popular flavorings Adriatic Sea CENTRAL Central Corsica FRANCE SOUTH This mountainous region is known for its fine Parma ham and Umbrian salami Tuscany offers simple food based on bread cheese bean fresh vegetables and fruit Emilia Romagna boasts stuffed pasta dishes including ravioli and tortellini pictured as well as lasagna Tyrrhenian Sea ISLANDS Sardinia Islands ISLANDS Sicily was often invaded by Arab sailors who introduced spices such as nutmeg cinnamon and cloves to the island's cuisine Famous desserts include cassata a sponge cake layered with ricotta cheese candied peel and a chocolate or vanilla filling pictured and granita a semi frozen treal Seafood such as lobster squid and tuna is popular in Sardinia Sicily
