Let’s think about what we hear these days about healthy eating. We hear about Omega-3 having numerous benefits for the human body. These little gems are primarily found in oily fish. Italians eat large amounts of sardines and anchovies which have wonderful Omega-3 content. We are told to eat plenty of fruit and vegetables. The Italian diet is loaded with these, too, in salads or cooked. Does any country have more ways to cook eggplant than Italy? Did you know that fruit is a basic component of almost every Italian meal – especially in their wonderful desserts.

You’ve surely heard of all of the health benefits of garlic and olive oil. Hello, Gourmet Italian food!!! Just loaded with both. Red wine has suddenly hit the list as being beneficial in small quantities. Chianti, anyone? But what about the pasta? Pasta bad! Dieticians tell us that a decent diet requires carbohydrates – and one can now buy low-carb pasta in just about any grocery store!

But what about that wonderful bread! Did you know that Italian bread has a significantly lower salt count then American bread? Also, their breads, such as ciabatta and foccaccia, are quite dense, giving more of a feeling of fullness so one eats less of it. And guess what they eat with their bread in Italy? Not butter! They soak it in the magical olive oil!

For years there has been lots of buzz and books about the Mediterranean Diet. And Italy is where? That’s right! Right smack dab in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea! So if you love gourmet Italian food, go ahead and indulge once in a while and take advantage this marvelous gourmet Italian food without feeling guilty about it! Mangia Bene!

photo credit: stu_spivack

Gourmet Italian chefs use a tremendous number of tasty cheese in almost every course they serve.  Cave paintings tell us that people have been making cheese since about 5000 B.C..  Since ancient sheep, cows and goats only gave milk part of the year – right after they giving birth each Spring – by the middle of Summer their milk had all dried up.  In order to preserve this milk so that they could eat it in the fall and winter, too – they made it into cheese.

Cheese is made by adding a little rennet to milk and then straining out most of the liquid so that the solid mass remains.  In modern times, rennet from the stomach lining of a calf or any of a variety of vegetables – including the wild cardoon – are used to coagulate the milk and bring about the separation of the curds from the whey.  Have you ever heard of the wild cardoon?  Many gourmet Italian cheeses are started with this unique vegetable that is almost indistinguishable from a globe artichoke and only the heads of the blooming cardoon are used.

Since Italy produces hundreds of different cheese, it is interesting to note that different regions of the country rely on different livestock for the milk to begin the cheesemaking process.  In northern Italian regions such as Piedmont, Lombardy and Liguria, the terrain is better suited to cows – so this regions gourmet Italian cheeses are primarily started with cow’s milk.  Central regions such as Umbria, Abruzzo and Tuscany, as well as southern regions such as Campania, Sicily and Sardinia, have long been the workplace of shepherds, so here sheep’s milk cheeses are the stars of the show.  Goat’s milk cheese and water buffalo cheese are also made.  You will find many buffalo milk cheeses in Italy’s southern regions.

It is not difficult to make your own yogurt or ricotta cheese, but making aged cheese is considerably more difficult.  Our hats are off to Italy for being one of the world’s leading cheese producers!  After all, cheese is almost always one of the stars of the show when making gourmet Italian food!

If you would like more information on making your own cheese, check out my favorite cheesemaking forum here!

Mangia Bene Frommagio!