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: il prosciutto, the famous ham, and il salame. Order them by weight or by slices, then eat them the Italian way: on bread, no butter needed.
| I buy three slices of ham. | Compro tre fette di prosciutto. |
I piatti
| dish | what arrives |
|---|---|
| la bistecca | a steak, from the macelleria |
| l'arrosto | a roast, Sunday's slow oven dish |
| la minestra | soup with pasta or rice in it |
| 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:
| Here people eat fish soup. | Qui si mangia la zuppa di pesce. |
Sweet things, and what goes on bread
An Italian colazione is sweet: bread with il burro and la marmellata, or with il miele if you keep bees happy. Inside pastries hides la crema — the soft custard il dolce is filled with.
| At breakfast I eat bread and jam. | A colazione mangio pane e marmellata. |
Sauce and juice
la salsa is the cooked sauce — la salsa di pomodoro above all — that dresses the pasta. And beside the caffè, the breakfast drink is il succo: un succo d'arancia, un succo di mela.
| I drink an orange juice. | Bevo un succo d'arancia. |
