12 Essential italian words

12 Essential Italian Words for Italia Day tours FWT Foodies!


Lunch a family affair Food n Wine tours Parma platters, 12 Essential italian words

12 Essential italian words – Food tours info and offers – 


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If you are reading this article, chances are you too are a lover of Italian food and you will certainly have come across lots of interesting Italian terms whilst perusing recipes, food blogs or menus in your favourite restaurants. You’ll just love our Cooking Days in Parma so here are some must have terms.

We’ve compiled a useful list of the vocabulary we think you absolutely need to know – you may be familiar with some of it already are but we are sure that not all of you know exactly how to cook your pasta ‘al dente’, what do do with your ‘acqua di cottura’ or exactly what’s in your ‘Arrabbiata’!

1) Al dente

This term indicates the level of cooking your pasta should have AT ALL TIMES. Italians eat their pasta only when its cooked to perfection and this means it must have that firm bite to it otherwise something definitely went wrong! Al dente literally translates as: To the tooth, which indicates the concept that the pasta must be not too soft but slightly chewy when biting it.

A little secret to perfect al dente pasta is to cook it at least one minute less than indicated on the packet. This will not work with every kind and brand of pasta as some have very strange cooking times that vary accordingly to a series of external factors. Nevertheless, this rule works with most of the pasta brands that are sold around the UK.

Another wise move would be to try the pasta 4 minutes before cooking time is up and then again after 2 minutes. This way you will know exactly when to drain it from the water to create a proper pasta plate!

Finally, always remember to throw the pasta in to cook only when the water is on full boil.

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2) All’Arrabbiata

This is a much-loved type of pasta sauce that you’ll find on most Italian menus. It’s so hot and spicy it’s actually angry! (the literal meaning of arrabbiata). Arrabbiata sauce is usually made with tomatoes, olive oil and peperoncino: three simple ingredients to give one amazing experience.

3) Antipasto

This is what Italians eat before their main course and literally means ‘before the meal’. It often consists of a tempting selection of cheeses with accompaniments, assorted bruschettas, vegetables in oil, small bites of fried delicacies and maybe a platter of cold cuts. Sometimes, if a restaurant has amazing antipasti, the Italians will order only those with a crisp glass of white wine.

Lunch a famous affair with Parma FWT

4) Bruschetta

Bruschetta is a favourite antipasto dish in Italy – it’s so simple but can taste incredible with the right, quality ingredients. Toast thickly sliced, traditional bread (open textured is best) and top with extra virgin olive oil and oregano, sweet sun ripened tomatoes, roasted aubergines, anchovies or olive pate. Just remember to pronounce it bru-sketta and not bru-shetta!

5) Frittata

Frittata translates as ‘fried’ and is the Italian version of the omelette. A frittata is generally started on the stove and finished in the oven and the chosen filling is mixed with the egg at the beginning rather than added later. There’s normally lots of Parmesan in the mix. Frittata is usually very large and thick and made for the whole family, sliced and often eaten cold or even in a sandwich!

6) Peperoncino

This is Italian chilli pepper, one of the most important ingredients in Italian cooking. There are around 85 varieties to choose from and the best you’ll find in Italy will be right down south in Calabria. Add it to virtually everything!

7) Al Forno

This term literally means ‘oven baked’ and it is associated with foods that are cooked in the oven rather than on the stove. Pasta al forno is a good example of the term and it indicates the typical, hearty, oven baked pasta that is so widely eaten in Italy. It can be made with lasagne, cannelloni, lumachoni, penne and rigatoni to name just a few pasta types.

8) Acqua di cottura

The literal translation of this term is ‘cooking water’ and it refers to the water you cook your pasta or rice in. Italian chefs will set aside a little of this water whilst cooking the pasta and later add a couple of spoons of it to the pasta sauce. It will gain density thanks to the starch that the pasta or rice has released in the water.

9) ‘QB’ Quanto basta

QB means just enough or ‘to taste’ in English, and you will find the abbreviation alongside various ingredients in many Italian recipes. The writer of the recipe is leaving quantities to your judgement! You’ll need to forget the traditional British way of being precise with measurements and quantities and rely on your taste buds!! This might happen with salt and pepper, garlic, herbs or even cheese. Many Italian cooks tend to use even fundamental recipe ingredients such as flour or sugar with a bit of error margin, making their dough using their eye for quantity rather that measuring everything precisely. This is characteristic of a culture that will always prefer creativity and uniqueness to standardized thinking… even if it means that a couple of times your pizza won’t come out quite right! ?

10) Crudo

The Best Parma Ham Tour is with FWT

Crudo means raw. This term can refer to the crudo ham (prosciutto crudo di Parma for example), which is the uncooked but aged version of ham Italians love, or can refer to meat or fish dishes. Crudo di pesce is the typical southern Italian, raw fish platter that will amaze your taste buds! Raw meat is usually called carpaccio and that too is quite delicious especially if you try the carpaccio di Fassona or Chianina Toscana.

11) Soffritto

This is a very important and typical Italian mix of carrots, onion and celery that is usually used as the flavour base of many dishes, be they pasta sauces, risottos, broths or meat dishes. You usually chop the vegetables very finely and fry them gently in olive oil until golden, you then add the main ingredients and slow cook everything.

12) Sott’oli/Sott’aceti – 12 Essential italian words

These are basically veggies in jars, which have been preserved in either oil (oli) or vinegar (aceti). You can find sun-dried tomatoes, onions, carrots, peppers, garlic, artichokes, aubergines and many others. The oil preserved ones are mainly eaten as part of an antipasto platter and those in vinegar are added to a rice or pasta salad as a quick and tasty meal.

Armed with this knowledge, you can now cook Italian with confidence!

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The load down – 3 Kings tour: The Parma Food and Wines

Your 3 Kings tour day starts with  

‘The King of Cheeses’

Our much revered Parmigiano Reggiano Tour



Your FWT day starts with an incredible visit to one of the most revered makers of the famous Parmigiano Reggiano cheese.  

Here we enter another world…

  • COOKING
  • SALTING
  • AGEING
  • TASTINGS

You will be amazed when you enter the cooking room to watch behind the scenes, the master and his family, cookingseparating the rich whey and lifting this magnificent DOP product.

As we begin to realise the huge amount of care and daily toil this product requires we visit the salting and sculpturing room. From there we enter the ageing room: the stagionatura.


Here among countless row of wheels is where the  richest aroma enlivens the senses we learn how the Consorzio  test and skillfully hammer each and every wheel before the ritual of fire branding.

Parmesan on sugar maple / parma golosa tours 

Of course the tour is not complete until we watch the masters lift the wheels and celebrate the birth of the King of cheese.



The best part of all! … we taste this wonder with a dash of honey, balsamico and if we can twist you arm, a refreshing glass of crisp Malvasia white wine. A truly special start to our fabulous Food n Walk tour day.

Tour starts 9am (duration 2 hrs)

Food preparation takes place 365 days per annum. Non-slip footwear is advised – thong flip-flops are not suitable as some floor areas are wet.

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2.  The Prosciutto di Parma tour

…Langhirano Parma Ham 100% natural, it’s in the air!

  • SCENIC DRIVE
  • SALTING
  • CURING
  • AGEING
  • BRANDING ROOMS
  • RESERVE ROOM

Our second destination is equally awe inspiring as the first… the stunning drive and vinyard ascent is a photographers dream!

We have found a real treasure, a remarkable curing workshop of Prosciutto di Parma. Located high above the Langhirano valley  in the heart of the Parma Ham DOP production area, .


Our Parma Ham factory

It’s all in the AIR

It is the along these Apennine foothills that conspire to create the unique conditions necessary to cure only genuine Parma Ham.

They say just salt, air and time is needed…

Italian Hams Prosciutto di Parma, Golosa culinary tours

But there is something else perhaps most fascinating of all that characterises this great legendary product:

the abiding union between Parmigiano Reggiano and Prosciutto di Parma.

We will see where the fresh haunches are selected an salted, visit the cooling, salting and “resting” rooms, each emulating the traditional annual curing seasons.

Best of all we will take you to the extraordinary cellar branding areas where the “Naso” or master nose deciphers the perfume of only the perfect product.

This is where we have truly the advantage over the rest because these vault house graded products aged in wood.

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Please Note: most days the Prosciutto workshop  is a buzz with activity – On weekends this may not be the case.  We have access to the factory and will see all the processes for the gourmet Parma Ham.
 

Lunch is served!  Your afternoon delight!

be there welcome

… on the Parma hillside

  • SCENIC VIEWS
  • TASTINGS
  • WINE TASTINGS
  • CASTLE GROUNDS
  • COFFEE 

Tortelli_derbetta ra ra



Top:  Your castle Lunch awaits

Above: OMGG!!!  Tortelli D’erbetta – finished in butter and Parmigiano Reggiano


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Our lunch destination is above the Parma Ham Valley – simply the best lunch in Italy


 PARMA TRADIZIONALE Lunch Menu

‘Salumi Misti’ freshly sliced DOP cold cut products:
 
Parmigiano Reggiano
Prosciutto di Parma
Culatello, Coppa
Felino Salame
 
 GOURMET Menu
…and for the full gourmet lunch the addition of:  
 
Tortelli filled with delicious spinach and ricotta, finished of course with freshly grated parmesan in clarified butter.
 
All this sipping IWC award winning wines overlooking wonderful vistas and the food valley area from the vinyeards of Langhirano.
 

FWT's fab Parma Lunch spread

 
And for a special treat – a world number one DOC traditional dry Lambrusco with full nectar nose, rich berry flavours and fresh clean finish.  Other wines include Malvasia, all grown in theimmediate  surrounding hills.
 
risottoporcini
 
Our lunch finishes  at .2.30pm with light sweet biscotti or torta, with coffee or Grappa.  
 

 
Please request any special dietary requirements.
  


3.  The amazing Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale RE 

Our final destination Balsamico settles your day in the most perfect way.


Balsamico FWT


The Balsamico producer

 … visit the Aceto batteria, the Vineyards and the hillside vistas… the incredible flavors finish our paradise 3 Kings tour.

Angelo copia

  • SCENIC DRIVE
  • PHOTO SHOOT
  • IN THE LOFTS
  • TASTINGS
  • WINE TASTINGS (OPTIONAL EXTRA)

(Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Reggio Emilia)

We are proud of our Balsamic tour because it is a rare location: special and utterly unique.

The consorzio for this original DOP Balsamico product dates back to the 11th century.

         

Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale it is produced solely from the finest grapes and never from soured wine vinegar like its Modenese industrial counterpart.


The sweetest white Trebbiano grapes are used to make this nectar, naturally grown and hand harvested – only the finest are selected by taste from the vineyard.

You will visit the Balsamic Must maturing rooms and the batteria lofts and taste 15 year old, 22 and 28 year old Balsamico from the antique barrels.

This sweet elixir helps you savour and digest a truly great day you will remember  for years to come.



Parma food tours Food n Wine Tours


  Parma Tastes at their best –  The 3 Kings Tour 


Send me the info and prices today!

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Call Nick or Kate for a chat  0044 (0) 7960113799 +393383111950 info@foodnwalktours.com


Special diet requirements can be catered for… Just let us know prior to booking.

 

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