Italian food menu
Italian food menu: what is served on holidays, at weddings and for some Sunday family lunches.
A typical Italian food menu usually begins with an aperitif. A soft or light drink with some appetizers signals the beginning. It is usually served outside, if weather conditions permit, and people gather around, with a few chairs or other seating arranged.
Then it's time to take a seat at the table. It's antipasto time and an typical Italian menu is seldom without this starter.
The word antipasto says it all: anti = before, pasto = meal and fairly substantial food items are served. Hors d'oeuvre is the best known term used worldwide.
There are many hors d'oeuvres used in Italy. They range from seafood salad (with octopus, shrimps, mussels, clams, etc) to "land" food, with raw ham, salami, olives, raw sausage and some preserved vegetables, such as artichokes (carciofi).
There are three plates on the table. The first, small one, is used for the antipasto. The second one, a soup bowl, is used for the first dish – pasta, risotto or soup.
The third plate is for the second course, which is meat, fish or both (one after another, not together) accompanied by a side dish.
The classic Italian cooking originates from the Mediterranean food pyramid, that has the basis (the larger part - the food you should eat more) formed by pasta, bread and other cereal food. The Italian food menu nowadays includes much more proteins than the original Mediterranean diet.
An Italian food menu often offer pasta as first course, but there are no rules. I have seen many people, including tourists, eating good minestrone (vegetable soup) in a restaurant. It can be a seafood risotto, or another kind of risotto. There are a great many options, whatever the chef can conjure up.
The second dish is meat or fish. It is important to know that Italian meals in Italy are sold and served separately. Italian foods and recipes may vary when served outside Italy. In most countries, Italian food is served as a unique dish.
Most Italian restaurant menus will offer these choices. Some of them have a large choice of antipasto (Italian starters) and uses to propose them in many small portions.
In Italy you will never eat an Alfredo tagliatelle made with chicken or mushrooms. Never!
A vegetable soup can be enriched by meat, but…Italians will never add meat to minestrone!
Thus, as people say in Italy, “Places you visit, customs you know” (Paese che vai, usanze che trovi). When you order a grilled filetto, for example, you have to ask for a side dish, if you want it. It will NOT come with French fries or anything else. It will come unaccompanied.
The side dishes are perhaps the least known, compared with the other dishes. They usually comprise a green salad, French fries, or some grilled vegetables. It will depend on the city and the restaurant.
After that one can have fruit and then a dessert. A typical Italian menu cannot be without a tiramisu and panna cotta.
Tartufo is also known, but unfortunately there are very few home-made ones; most are industrially produced. Tiramisu is very tasty and it's not difficult to find it, freshly prepared by the chef.
After the dessert...coffee and then, an "amazza caffé" (kill coffee) that is a liqueur. You can choose your preferred liqueur. People usually drink grappa or limoncello nowadays, but there are other options.
By now you should have finished a typical Italian menu. If you ate it all, probably accompanied by a good wine, you will possibly feel like sleeping for a while…this is usually the reason why shops in Italy used to close from 1 to 4pm! (Don't worry however, because now many of them have a 10am-7pm day without closing at lunch time).
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