Sapori italiani (salumi e piatti)

I salumi

Walk into any Italian food shop and the counter is hung with salumi — cured meats sold by the fetta. The two you must know: the ham (prosciutto)

il prosciutto, the famous ham, and the salamiil salame. Order them by weight or by slices, then eat them the Italian way: on bread, no butter needed.

I piatti

dish	what arrives
the steak	la bistecca
a steak, from the macelleria
the roast	l'arrosto
a roast, Sunday's slow oven dish
the soup (with pasta or rice)	la minestra
soup with pasta or rice in it
the soup (chunky, with bread)	la zuppa
chunky soup, poured over bread

Minestra and zuppa both translate as soup, but an Italian cook keeps them apart: a minestra has pasta or rice cooked in it, a zuppa is thick with vegetables or fish and meets bread in the bowl. With si — the impersonal you just learned — you can state how things are eaten here:

Sweet things, and what goes on bread

An Italian colazione is sweet: bread with the butter

il burro and the jamla marmellata, or with the honeyil miele if you keep bees happy. Inside pastries hides the cream (custard)la crema — the soft custard il dolce is filled with.

Sauce and juice

the saucela salsa is the cooked sauce — *la salsa di pomodoro* above all — that dresses the pasta. And beside the *caffè*, the breakfast drink is the juiceil succo: *un succo d'arancia*, *un succo di mela*.