What Makes Good Italian Food and a Great Italian Restaurant?
This is what I think. Italy has a wonderful tradition of fine food. Italian food’s importance to Italian culture cannot be overstated. It is one of the central elements, and why shouldn’t it be? Think about Italy’s geography for a second: • It runs a long way from north to south. Therefore, it has a wide array of growing seasons and soil types. This means a rich diversity of ingredients for food. • It is a peninsula, meaning it is nearly surrounded by the sea but also connected to the great Eurasian land mass. There is an abundance of fresh seafood and foreign ingredients from neighboring lands. • It sits between Europe and Africa in the Mediterranean. All Mediterranean cultures have excellent food traditions from North Africa to Lebanon and Israel, France, Greece, Spain and, of course, Italy. When you think of noodles and pasta, you probably think of Italy, but those wonderful inventions came to Italy from China thanks to Marco Polo. It tells you a lot about Italian food culture that
