By Anna Fiori

If you are an Italian and you plan on hosting a great get together, you obviously already know what you must not leave out in regards to serving the guests and that is the fine Italian cheeses. This is something that basically goes hand in hand with socializing, and without cheese on the table you can bet there will be some confused and upset guests. Cheese is a very popular item when it comes to not only nibbling, but with larger scale meals as well. Whether it is pre-sliced, or it was left as a whole and you break it off yourself cheese is a big-ticket item that few partygoers forget.

No Cheese Equals No Lasagna

If you are going to make a great Italian dish such as lasagna and you forgot the cheese, then you can basically wipe that dish right off the menu for the night. The fact is that you cannot make this recipe without cheese, and this defiantly broadens the actual importance of the cheese as a whole. There are hundreds of various Italian cheeses that you can choose from when it comes to picking something out for a recipe like this, finding the right cheese however, is key and will be noticed by the diner that tries the lasagna. Lasagna is not the only great Italian dish that defiantly needs a form of cheese to complete it; in fact there are several dishes that depend on the use of cheese to make them a success.

The Cheese Is Everywhere

The great thing about Italian cheese is that it is virtually everywhere. You will not have a difficult time finding a cheese that you can use for a recipe or for a cheese and cracker plate for snacks. Cheese is something that the Italians have been making for thousands of years, and they have actually become authorities on what a wonderful cheese is meant to taste like. Italian cheese is appreciated from the standard snack tray, all the way up to some of the most delicate Italian recipes that are considered world class. Some of these fine recipes are only found in the most prestigious of restaurants today, and the chef will grade the quality of the cheese long before it reaches the recipe. Many of the fine cheeses that are used for the great recipes, are actually made in house at the restaurant for the specific use by the chef for the recipe.

A Simple Choice

Along with fine Italian recipes that use great cheese, you will also find those occasions where someone would just prefer to use a great Italian cheese on a great sandwich. The cheese in combination with some divine Italian lunch meat of fantastic hard crust bread, will definitely tickle your taste buds. You will fine many cheeses that will actually bring the most out a strong Italian lunch meat, and actually change the taste of it. This is what is so wonderful about the cheeses of this delightful tiny country of Italy.

Anna Fiori writes food related articles for the Italian Traditional Food website at http://www.italiantraditionalfood.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Anna_Fiori

By Ana Maria Da Costa

Italian salami is not often named as a typical Italian product, even if it is really present in Italians daily diet.

This simple cold cut is commonly used in Italy in an antipasto or, more commonly, inside a sandwich that a young Italian student eat at school pause.

Generally salami is made with 1/3 beef, 1/3 pork and 1/3 fat. This proportion varies depending on the kind of salami. For example, the felino one is usually made with precious meat and less fat, being considered a gourmet one.

Outside Italy, cold cuts are not always fresh and often are considered as something conserved, not appropriate for a daily diet.

This false impression is due to the fact that often these cold cuts are not consumed often in these countries, associated with fat and conserved food.

They are indeed conserved, and one should not base the own diet on cold cuts. But it is not a drastic choice, as they have high nutritional values.

Italian salami has a protein percentage range that goes from 24 to 30%, and contains potassium, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and B1, B2 and PP vitamins.

Besides salami, there are a wide variety of Italian cold cuts that can be easily found in any Italian market, for daily use. The cold cuts counter has always a queue of people buying salami, prosciutto, mortadella, between other varieties.

Many times the word-of-mouth fails. The famous Italian raw prosciutto
Between the Italian raw hams, one of the most famous one is called Prosciutto di Parma. This product has the European Quality Brand PDO (Protected Designation of Origin), so as 7 other Italian raw hams. But often people just say "Parma" thinking they are saying "Italian raw ham".

Prosciutto di Parma is a wonderful product, so is the Tuscan one, but they are different. The Parma one is sweeter, and the Tuscan one is salted (it is salted because originally used by the shepherd s with the Tuscan bread, that has quite no salt).

Italian raw ham is a gourmet product and is used in all diets, including the children ones, as it is a healthy choice, being rich in proteins an easy to digest.

The "poorest" cold cut is mortadella. It is considered poor because who could not afford buying raw ham, bought mortadella. But it is not poor in taste, rather it pleases all. A fresh and crispy piece of bread with a tiny slices of mortadella is one of the taste major delights.

Mortadella is made only of pork. During the '600 a cardinal settled a prohibition of including beef into the mortadella recipe, prohibiting also the production of this specialty outside the city of Bologna, as it was difficult to control these productions. These rules have changed, as it is produced in many other cities now, but a good mortadella must always contain only pork.

In an average Italian family, cold cuts are used for children sandwiches at school - it is surely a better choice comparing to extra sweet snacks, as antipasto and as an alternative dinner.

Specially when one is hungry, the vision of a table set with cold cuts as Italian salami, prosciutto and mortadella together with a couple of baskets containing fresh bread, some good Italian cheeses and a bottle of Italian red wine is surely an excellent choice.

Ana Maria da Costa. Economist, living in Italy since 1983 and proceeding the studies in Food and Wine culture. The website http://www.all-about-italian-food.com gives useful information about Italian food

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ana_Maria_Da_Costa

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