Italy Archives - Hungry Travelers

Italy

Food to bring home from Sicily

Posted on April 15, 2026April 7, 2026 by Pat and David

By nature, we are hunter-gatherers. (Pat hunts. David gathers. He usually has the extra space in his luggage.) We rarely venture anywhere without returning home with some of the tastes of the trip. This series about foodstuffs to bring home is usually entitled ‶What to buy in a supermarket in ….″ But apart from the capita city of Palermo, we didn't see many supermarkets. We ended up buying foodstuffs in the public open-air markets, small delis, and in specialty shops. Shopping from individual vendors on the street turned out to be much more fun than scouring the supermarket shelves. Over the course of three weeks we ended up with quite a haul. Fitting it into our Ryan Air-friendly luggage was a challenge. One item we...Read More

Ghiotta: A touch of Sicilian home cooking

Posted on April 8, 2026March 30, 2026 by Pat and David

We met Lena as we were all marveling over the Greek theater in Taormina, Sicily (parconaxostaormina.com/en). Originally built in the third century BCE, the ruins perch high above the Ionian sea. Even after the Roman renovations (they took out the orchestra to make room for gladiatorial combat) and more than a millenium of decay, the old theater has a marvelously imposing presence. After chatting about Sicily's rich history and remarkable artifacts like Roman villas and Byzantine churches, our conversation inevitably turned to food. We had been spending a lot of time in the fresh food markets, after all. Lena had been born near Trapani and emigrated from Sicily to Toronto with her family when she was seven years old. She grew up eating her mother's...Read More

Sicily rings in Easter with baked pasta

Posted on April 1, 2026April 1, 2026 by Pat and David

One of the perks of renting an apartment while traveling is that it give us an excuse to go grocery shopping. (As if you could keep us out of the markets....) A particular shape of dried pasta kept catching our eyes in the fresh markets and even in the supermarkets. Called anelletti, it's a small ring-shaped pasta. We kept looking for it on restaurant menus, but to no avail. Eventually we learned that it's mainly used in baked pastas for special events, including Easter. Of course we bought a bag to bring home, and we're glad we did. The shape is a little hard to find in the U.S., as most ring-shaped pastas for sale here are the even smaller rings called anellini, mostly used...Read More

Sausage quest elicits timeworn beauty of Palazzolo Acreide

Posted on March 27, 2026March 27, 2026 by Pat and David

Good things happen when you follow your stomach. In our reading about Sicily we came across an intriguing gastronomic nugget. The traditional sausage of the mountain town of Palazzolo Acreide was one of more than fifty specialty foods of Sicily celebrated by the Slow Food Foundation. Only a handful of butchers still made the sausage, and only a few places in the town served it on their menus. In the interest of gastronomic preservation, we decided to pay a visit and do our part in keeping the tradition alive. It was, after all, only a 45-minute drive from elegant Noto, where we were staying in a guest room in the Liberty-style Villa Nicolaci (nicolacisuites.it/en/). Moreover, we hoped against hope that the 7th century BCE sanctuary...Read More

Welcome to Sicily at Palermo’s Ballaro market

Posted on March 8, 2026March 8, 2026 by Pat and David

We started a three-week trip to Sicily with a week in the island's capital city of Palermo. We have two criteria in choosing an Airbnb: the price and proximity to the fresh food market. We're not sure which comes first. We got it right on a funky little street with a second story apartment less than a five minute walk from the market streets. Yes, streets. Ballaro sprawls for blocks and blocks -- completely unlike the covered market buildings we're used to in Spain. And despite the stenciled signs advising "tourists go home," everyone is friendly and helpful. It's possible that the greatest art of Sicily is the display of food, which is rearranged every morning. This being March, the stalls are filled with gorgeous...Read More

‘Italian Coastal’ conjures tasty memories of land and sea

Posted on April 16, 2024April 16, 2024 by Pat and David

Every so often a cookbook comes our way that plucks the heartstrings of memory. Having eated most of the way down the Tyrrhenian coast from Tuscany to Sicily, recipe after recipe reminds us of some sunny day at a long table in the open air. The book's subtitle says it well ‶Recipes and stories from where the land meets the sea.″ This isn't author Amber Guinness's first rodeo. Her initial book, A House Party in Tuscany, featured stories and recipes from the family's Arniano Painting School, a residential program that features, among other attractions, Amber's cooking. Born in London and educated in England, Guinness had the great fortune of growing up in Arniano in Tuscany. She has broadened her horizons, gleaning tastes and traditions from...Read More

Bar Enza’s breezy fare summons Italian summer

Posted on June 20, 2023June 17, 2023 by Pat and David

We explain the title of this website with the subtitle ‶Bringing the tastes of travel back home.″ Sometimes, though, tastes close to home can be transporting in themselves. It's the middle of June and we're already pining for summer on the Italian coast. But in our case, we can get a dose of that sublime experience by going to Bar Enza (Charles Hotel, 1 Bennett St.; 617-661-5050; bar-enza.com) in Harvard Square. It's nice that the food and wines of the Cinqueterre, the Amalfi Coast, or the beach at Capri are a 10-minute walk from our home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We have chef Tony Susi to thank for that. Since he took over the helm at Bar Enza in April, he's crafted menus that embody the...Read More

Abruzzo means more than just Montepulciano

Posted on November 21, 2022November 21, 2022 by Pat and David

Italy is famed primarily for its red wines, including Montepulciano in Abruzzo. But the region also produces some excellent whites. The best of them are Trebbiano d'Abruzzo, made from the regional clone of the white wine grape that accounts for nearly a third of the white wine vineyards in all of Italy. For example, Soave and Orvieto are based on the same grape. But Trebbiano displays a special character in Abruzzo that justifies going under its own name. We recently acquired a bottle of Trebbiano d'Abruzzo from Cantina Terzini (cantinaterzini.it). The Terzini family has grown grapes for generations but started making wine under its own name in 2007. Cantina Terzini has been a big success in Europe and Australia but is still seeking an American...Read More

‘Serafina’ capitalizes on tender summer harvests

Posted on July 16, 2022July 8, 2022 by Pat and David

How this cookbook would have made the late Tony May smile! The champion of Italian food in America always insisted that Italian cuisine had been emphasizing fresh ingredients centuries before the farm-to-table fad. The Italian penchant for combining a few terrific fresh ingredients to make a dish underlies Serafina: Modern Italian Cuisine for Everyday Home Cooking by Vittorio Assaf and Fabio Granato, text by Lavinia Branca Snyder (Rizzoli, New York, 2022, $39.95). Of course, a good origin story never hurts. Assaf and Granato were lost at sea in a small sailboat. They comforted each other by vowing that if they survived, they'd open a restaurant serving the best pizza and pasta in the world. And so they did, launching Serafina in New York in 1995....Read More

Ligurian minestrone recalls tastes from the land of pesto

Posted on February 19, 2022February 18, 2022 by Pat and David

One of the smallest regions of Italy, Liguria wraps around the salty rim of the northern Mediterranean. It is a great place to eat. The mountain conifers and herds of sheep provide Liguria's pine nuts and cheese. Groves on the foothills above the sea yield a delicate olive oil. The farms sprouting on the thin strip of arable coastline abound in intensely perfumed basil. The village of Boccadasse, on the east end of the capital city of Genoa, is home to fishing boats that supply the city's restaurants. When David visited a few years ago, he wandered the ancient streets of Genoa, marveling over Baroque palaces built with wealth from bankrolling Spain's New World adventures. Even some of the most modest 17th century homes on...Read More