Italian

Just like cheese and wine or bread and butter, meat and pasta is a match made in heaven – what can be more delicious than strands of pasta covered in your favourite tomato or cream-based meat sauce?! Just thinking about Carbonara Alfredo or Ragù Napoletano has us craving what must surely be Italy’s greatest export – and yes, the pasta did originate in Italy, despite a misconception that it was first eaten in China.

Saturday, 9 February, is World Pizza Day and if you’re like the majority of us, when you hear the word ‘pizza’ you probably start salivating. Surely one of the world’s most ubiquitous and much-loved foods, pizza is to modern day pop culture what cucumber sandwiches must have been to the Victorians in the 1800s.

Fossil evidence suggests that the olive tree dates back some 20-40 million years ago in the area that is today known as Italy. It was first cultivated around 7,000 years ago; it’s been around as food for around 6,000 years; and it was first grown commercially in Crete around 3000 BC. Today a multi-billion dollar industry, there are, according to the International Olive Council, an estimated 865 million olive trees in the world.

Very little feels more commonplace than a knife and fork. We take our eating utensils for granted and we can’t imagine anyone enjoying a ‘civilised’ meal without them, but as we know, that hasn’t always been the case. So, how did cutlery develop, and which came first – the knife or the fork?