page_title: Italian cuisine
section_title: Meal structure
hierarchical_section_title: Italian cuisine / Meal structure
caption_attribution_description: English: Prosecco Gold
context_page_description: Italian cuisine is a Mediterranean cuisine consisting of the ingredients, recipes and cooking techniques developed across the Italian Peninsula since the antiquity, and later spread around the world together with waves of Italian diaspora.
  Significant changes occurred with the colonization of the Americas and the introduction of potatoes, tomatoes, capsicums, maize and sugar beet, this last introduced in quantity in the 18th century. Italian cuisine is known for its regional diversity, especially between the north and the south of the Italian peninsula. It offers an abundance of taste, and is one of the most popular and copied in the world. It influenced several cuisines around the world, chiefly that of the United States.
  Italian cuisine is generally characterized by its simplicity, with many dishes having only two to four main ingredients. Italian cooks rely chiefly on the quality of the ingredients rather than on elaborate preparation. Ingredients and dishes vary by region. Many dishes that were once regional have proliferated with variations throughout the country.
context_section_description: Traditional meals in Italy typically contained four or five courses. Especially on weekends, meals are often seen as a time to spend with family and friends rather than simply for sustenance; thus, meals tend to be longer than in other cultures. During holidays such as Christmas and New Year's Eve, feasts can last for hours.
  Today, full-course meals are mainly reserved for special events such as weddings, while everyday meals include only a first or second course (sometimes both), a side dish, and coffee. The primo (first course) is usually a filling dish such as risotto or pasta, with sauces made from meat, vegetables, or seafood. Whole pieces of meat such as sausages, meatballs, and poultry are eaten in the secondo. Italian cuisine has some single-course meals (piatto unico) combining starches and proteins. Contorni of vegetables and starches are served on a separate plate and not on the plate with the meat as is done in northern European Style serving.
caption: A bottle of sparkling Prosecco, which one would have as an aperitivo
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