The world is getting smaller by the year. Nowhere is out of reach nowadays. Every one loves telling holiday stories to friends and family about food they’ve eaten and what they’ve seen whilst exploring the far reaches of the planet. But to many of us it isn’t enough to just go on holiday and experience lovely food and sights, we want to be able to take the food home with us and share it with our families and friends. This is where cookery holidays come in.

Cookery holidays are available all over the world but it’s no surprise to find out that Italy is the number one destination for traveling gourmets. What with the stunning scenery, fabulous history, wonderful people and amazing food it has rightly earned its place at the top of the tree.

These holidays are generally situated in rural, unspoilt areas of Italy. One of the beauties of italy is that although you might be deep into the countryside you’re also never too far away from a bustling, vibrant city such as Milan, Turin, Rome, Bergamo, Florence or Bologna.

Cookery holidays cover most ability level so suit those who want a holiday but would love to cook as well as those who want to cook but would also like a holiday and are run by families or chef’s who want to pass on the authentic way of cooking real Italian food. Whatever your level you’ll be guaranteed an experience like no other. These chefs have a first hand knowledge of the local ingredients and the regional culinary traditions, as well as a noticeable passion for Italian cookery.

The beauty of Italian Italian food, just like the countryside, it varies so much from region to region as well as from season to season. Pasta is cooked differently in Sicily than it is in Sardinia, bread is baked differently in Piedmont than it is in Sienna. A pizza is totally different in Milan to one eaten in Naples If you wanted to, and why wouldn’t you, you could have a totally different cooking holiday experience every year just by visiting Italy time and time again.

Don’t be too daunted by a cookery holiday if you’re not the greatest chef, generally classes are made up of around eight to ten people therefore each participant enjoys personal attention and gets the most out of every cooking session and excursion.

The growing demand for cooking holidays and courses has been fueled by the popularity of the celebrity chef. Cookery holidays Cookery holidays in Italy offer plenty of opportunity for both wonderful cooking education as well as fantastic excursions and activities to the local area which could include wine tasting, dancing, painting, sculpting, writing, guided walking, herbal tours and olive picking which all give you more opportunity to soak up the tastes and smells of the local area.

So if you love cooking or would like to experience the many wonderful micro worlds of Italy maybe you could roll both passions into one holiday.

I am an internet author charged with the responsibility of writing about experiences, services and products from around the world.

www.cookery-school-italy.com
Harwood E Woodpecker

In this age of convenience so many people don’t bother to cook, they eat to survive. This is a terrible way to be. These people are not only eating ready cooked meals pack with fats, sugars and salts but they are also missing out on the wonderful therapy that is cooking.

My fascination started many years ago when an Italian family moved in next door to me. I’m English and back in 1977 had never smelt such aroma’s in my life, the heady smell of tomato, garlic and oregano wafting across my back yard totally transfixed me. Still to this day if I catch a smell similar to the one I fell in love with all those years ago I’m drawn back to that day.

The trick with Italian cooking is most certainly less is more, but don’t be mistaken into believing that it’s easy to get the taste correct just because there’s fewer ingredients because it isn’t.

Tomato sauces made with nothing more than tomatoes, garlic, salt, pepper is very difficult to perfect to your own taste. I like a pinch of chili in my tomato sauce, my girlfriend likes more pepper. And so Italian cooking goes. The beauty of the tomato sauce is that when you’ve perfected your own recipe you can start adding subtleties to it, such as diced salami, meatballs and even a little grated Parmesan cheese while the sauce is still cooking. All these add to the flavor of the sauce without over complicating it.

One word of advice I would give, when you perfect your own tomato sauce never try to differ it, it will never be as good.

Of course, man cannot survive on tomato sauce alone. Luckily he can add pasta to it to liven the day up.

Making fresh pasta is a joy. A messy and time consuming joy, but boy, it’s therapeutic. Italian cooking is always therapeutic. Most pasta is made with semolina flour, a hard wheat flour, but some people use corn, other than that you just add an egg or two, mix, kneed and you’re just about done.

After kneading leave the dough to rest in the fridge for fifteen minutes.

Take the dough out, roll it then pass it through a pasta making machine Leave it to dry for an hour or two and cook in boiling water for a few minutes. Pasta making machines are for another day, needless to say as with all things Italian the simplest are the best, and they don’t cost an arm and a leg!

The excess pasta (I’d recommend making plenty to save time) can be frozen or refrigerated and eaten another day.

Simply food at it’s delicious best. I love Italian food If I was allowed to by my family I’d live off nothing but pasta. You can bake it, make soups with it, have it with anyone of a thousand sauces and even have it as a salad.

La cucina l’Italia e molto bella.

I am an internet author charged with the responsibility of writing about experiences, services and products from around the world.
www.cookery-school-italy.com
Harwood E Woodpecker