Italian Food Lovers

Valentine’s Day is here!

And, yes, while we here at Italian Food Lovers might not be completely swept off our feet by what has become a somewhat over-hyped holiday, we can’t help but think of the great excuses that we have for yet another great gourmet meal to celebrate.

So, while you’re wining and dining romantically tonight, we thought we’d put together a few gourmet food facts that you can pull out to impress your special someone.

Note: these gourmet food facts should be used tactfully and sparingly, so as to not seem contrived. For instance, when offering your loved one some of Massimo’s excellent ceviche, you can casually drop the “Honey, did you know that it is considered a faux pas in Italy to grate Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese over seafood dishes, like ceviche or even Linguine with Mussels?” line — that’ll be sure to impress and show that you really know your stuff.

So, without further ado, here come some great Valentine’s food fact morsels for you, dear Italian Food Lover. Happy Valentine’s Day!

Gourmet (and Romantic!) Food Facts ala Italian Food Lovers

>> High quality Extra-Virgin Olive Oil comes in dark bottles so as to not allow much light to pass through the bottle and potentially oxidize the fragile olive oil inside. The color of the oil inside the bottle doesn’t necessarily denote quality (Extra-Virgin oils can be a range of colors), but the outside bottle must be dark so as to protect the delicacy of the oil.

Here at Academia Barilla we even completely protect the oil from sunlight by wrapping our top gourmet olive oil bottles in golden paper, which completely protects the bottle and its precious content from all external lights (all other Academia Barilla olive oil bottles of course come with a very dark glass, that filters out most of the external light).

>> Everyone talks about the romance of Tuscany, and here are some food products that conjure up romantic and tasty notions: Tuscany’s famous wine, Chianti (which, like most Tuscan wines, is made with Sangiovese grapes) and Tuscany’s most famous sheep’s milk cheese, Pecorino Toscano, are an excellent combination as a appetizer or as a cheese course. They also make for a great start to a picnic basket!

>> Farinata is a famous Ligurian flatbread that is made using chickpea flour. It is commonly seen in the beautiful and very romantic towns of the Cinque Terre on the Ligurian coast, same area where Academia Barilla produces its refinate Riviera Ligure extra-virgin olive oil, the one we wrap for max protection.

Completely unrelated to this delicacy is a historical figure named Farinata degli Uberti - he was a Tuscan military leader who Dante, famous poet of the Divina Commedia, had placed in Inferno. Perhaps there is a connection after all — maybe Tuscan Farinata degli Uberti made the Ligurian Farinata flatbread in his flaming tomb in the sixth circle of Hell? Only Dante knows the answer to that one….

>> Italians are known to fare la scarpetta at the end of the pasta course of a meal. This sweet little phrase, which literally translates to “do the little shoe,” signifies the ritual usage of bread to soak up any remaining sauce after having consumed the pasta. Make sure you drop this line to your Valentine when you’re about to finish your plate — and possibly their plate as well! after all, if you do it with style, it can also be a very sensual geste during a romantic Valentine’s dinner…

>> And, lastly, it is indeed considered a bit strange to mix cheese with seafood, though after years of seeing tourists request Parmigiano with their Spaghetti alle Vongole (Spaghetti with Clams), more and more Italian nouveau cuisine dishes are creatively mixing the milk with the fruits of the sea.

We’ll have to dig up one of those contemporary recipes in the near future, but, in the meantime, we recommend you save your DOP Pecorino Toscano for dishes that don’t involve fish, shellfish or other water-borne goodies.

Have a wonderful, tasty, gourmet and very romantic Valentine’s Day!

Hey, our newborn Italian Food Lovers blog just won the Best of the Blogs Award!

This is incredible, we are so excited about this! And we didn’t even fixed our blog platform bugs yet! (I’m sure you noticed that we have some problems still uploading the images…)

What a fantastic email we just got from David Helwig of SooToday.com, a popular information and entertainment local portal from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada.

Go check their portal if you are planning a trip to beautiful Canada, specially if you plan to visit the incredibly beautiful Northern Ontario. They even have a very cool 360 degrees webcam so you can see how beautiful is Sault S.te Maire from the top of the City Hall and across the river. Nice!

The Best of the Blogs Award awarded to Italian Food Lovers from SooToday.com has been announced with the following motivation:

Whereas 16,015 residents of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario described their ethnic origin in a recent federal census as “Italian”; and

Whereas the City of Sault Ste. Marie is known internationally for the quality of its Italian food; and

Whereas Sault expatriates around the world struggle this time of year to fulfil their longings for said cuisine; and

Whereas members of the Barilla family are known and respected worldwide as defenders and ambassadors of traditional Italian gastronomic culture;

Now therefore be it resolved that SooToday.com’s Best of the Blogs Award be bestowed on Academia Barilla’s new and very useful Italian Food Lovers Blog, as described in the following news release:

(follows full copy of the press release we launched yesterday to announce the birth of our blog, that you can read also here)

Read the full article on SooTimes.com here.

WOW, that’s terrific, we are honored and proud to win this award.

This also give us a boost in wanting to blog more and more to deliver you our top knowledge and experience of Italian gastronomy, both traditional and contemporary.

Thank you David and thanks you SooTimes.com, but most of all thank you to all the citizens of City of Sault Ste. Marie, not only for awarding our blog as Best of the Blog winner, but also for awarding to the Barilla family the respect and title of ambassadors of traditional Italian gastronomic culture and, most of all, for keeping up with the tradition of Italian gourmet cuisine in Northern Ontario, Canada.

Our virtual Italian Food Lovers award goes to you all and to the sweet City of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada.

By the way, I will get in touch immediately with the Academia Barilla offices in the United States, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.

I’m sure they’ll love to include Saulte Ste. Marie in the list of places where to organize our delicious Academia Barilla free tasting events of Italian traditional gourmet food. I’m sure the citizens of Sault Ste. Marie will appreciate a free session of gourmet tasting provided by Academia Barilla as a thank you for the very appreciated Best of the Blogs award.

Thank you again, and Happy New Year to all our new Canadian Italian Food Lovers friends!

The very proud Italian Food Lovers / Academia Barilla blogging team.