One day, several thousand years ago, the very first would-be farmer was out looking at some wild grains, and she had an idea: what if, instead of eating the healthiest, most robust plants, she carefully harvested them, collected the seeds, and used them to grow healthy plants again next year? The idea worked, and for […]
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Why does this olive oil from France taste different than an olive oil from Italy? It’s more than just a difference in geography. Here are three key factors that give Maussane, the olive oil from Provence that has a cult following, its je ne sais quoi.
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Basil pesto from Liguria is a food with working class roots, eaten by sailors to stay healthy at sea. Today people around the world make basil pesto, but the best is still made in Italy. And when you use it to sauce good pasta, you have the ultimate summer dinner.
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Twenty years ago, fennel pollen was a secret to everyone except a few cognoscenti in rural Tuscany. Today, thanks to an eccentric Tuscan butcher, it’s the secret ingredient of famous chefs and adventurous home cooks.
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If you want really flavorful pasta, the first step is to start with really flavorful wheat. That’s exactly what Filippo Drago is doing in western Sicily. He’s working to put Tumminia wheat—and the pasta he makes from it—on the global culinary map.
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Just like the flavor of wine varies based on its terroir, the flavor of tomatoes depends on its terroir, too. To grow the most flavorful tomatoes, you want super fertile soil and plenty of sunshine. Basically, you want to grow them at the foot of an Italian volcano. If you don’t live by the foot […]
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Fifty years ago, the balsamic vinegar industry that we know didn’t exist. That’s not to say that balsamic vinegar didn’t exist. It’s been made for centuries in the attics of almost every well-to-do family’s home in Modena, Italy. It’s just that no one outside of Modena knew about it. It wasn’t a conspiracy. It’s more […]
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There are plenty of stories about the origins of panettone, Italy’s most famous Christmas dessert, but the most romantic is this: once upon a time in Milan a poor baker named Antonio had a beautiful daughter who caught the eye of a local nobleman. When Antonio’s bakery was in danger of going out of business, […]
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The Northern Italian region of Piedmont is famous for its hazelnuts. That reputation might come from the fact that it’s the birthplace of the genius-level chocolate-hazelnut pairing called gianduja. When Napoleon instituted a Mediterranean naval blockade that caused the price of cacao to skyrocket, an enterprising chocolatier in Turin stretched out his chocolate supply by […]
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Our spring shipment of imports arrived at our warehouse a few weeks ago. Each year, this delivery is the one that includes our newest harvest of olive oils—in this case, we just got the 2014 harvest. It takes until May for the new oils to arrive because after the olives are picked and pressed around […]
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