Fette biscottate are Italian crisp, dry, and lightly sweetened toast very light to digest. They are made with durum wheat flour, traditionally eaten during breakfast, accompanied by butter, jam, honey or plain. Yogurt plain or with fruit.
Italians eat predominantly sweet things for breakfast. This can be quite a shock if you are used to having toast, eggs, and bacon first thing in the morning. Instead, the traditional breakfast in Italy relies almost exclusively on baked goods like biscuits, cookies, pastries, rusks, and cakes.
What is this? Homemade breakfast in Italy is usually a straightforward affair. Traditional breakfast drinks in Italian households are coffee, tea and cocoa milk for the kids and the main breakfast foods are bread with butter and jam, biscuits and cereals.
Italians don't slather their bread with butter, nor dip it in olive oil and balsamic vinegar. They enjoy it with a light drizzle of olive oil or plain. Resist the urge to dip or ask for butter.
Best recipes with butter
Quite predictably, butter is the undisputed king of many typical Northern Italian foods. The first that comes to mind is risotto. Butter is used both to toast the rice at the beginning and to complete the cooking in the final step.
Raw butter consumption in Italy is practically nil, while in cooking (where all in all butter does not express its best, due to its low smoke point, which is between 120 and 130°C just barely) it is olive oil that reigns supreme, and not only in the Central and Southern Regions.
A typical breakfast for a Roman looks like a quick coffee and a pastry, eaten standing at the bar. A frothy cappuccino and a warm cornetto is the most common combination. Italian cornetti are sweeter than French croissants and come vuoto (plain) or filled with jam, custard or Nutella.
The typical Roman breakfast consists of an Italian croissant (cornetto) and a small cappuccino! Cornetti are served simple or are often made with Nutella or marmalade inside. There's nothing like a sweet treat and a bit of caffeine to start the day!
Generally speaking, Italians don't like to start the day with a heavy breakfast which is why they don't spend much time cooking, but rather eat something simple, small and sometimes even on the go, without indulging. Instead, they have a “spuntino” (snack) later in the morning.
Since Italians have about six hours between lunch and dinner, they usually grab something in between: These snacks are called merende and are basically morning or afternoon pick-me ups that can be sweet (like fruit or biscotti, a hard cookie) or savory (like crackers or a slice of pizza al taglio).
The traditional Australian breakfast is very similar, unsurprisingly, to a typical British or American breakfast, with a whole fry-up made up of smokey bacon, eggs in various ways, grilled mushrooms, and tomatoes, with the optional addition of hash browns, beans, pork or beef sausages.
For a healthy and filling breakfast, top it up with different types of fruit that are popular in Italy. Some of the most common Italian fruits include bananas, apples, oranges, pineapples, and strawberries. If you can find them fresh, this is a great way to get some nutrients and energy first thing in the morning.
Italians eat a very light breakfast. Italians usually have an espresso or cappuccino for breakfast. Some people will add a light pastry as well. Italian breakfast is much lighter than the large meal you may be accustomed to eating in the morning.
A German breakfast consists of hearty Brot (breads) and Brötchen (rolls), decorated with butter, sweet jams and local honey, thinly sliced meats, cheese and even some Leberwurst.
Eating so late at night means Italians don't wake up hungry in the morning, therefore a light breakfast of coffee and cake is enjoyed as a “morning snack” and is preferred to protein-packed heavy American or English breakfast options. You might wonder about the benefit of starting your day eating cake.
The Romans ate a breakfast of bread or a wheat pancake eaten with dates and honey. At midday they ate a light meal of fish, cold meat, bread and vegetables. Often the meal consisted of the leftovers of the previous day's cena.
The Romans ate three meals during a typical day. The first meal (breakfast) was called the "ientaculum." It was usually eaten around sunrise and consisted of bread and maybe some fruit. The next meal (lunch) was called the "prandium". The prandium was a very small meal eaten around 11 AM.
A typical French breakfast consists of a croissant or bread with butter and jam and sometimes a sweet pastry. Fresh fruit juice and hot beverages, like coffee or tea, are also included. Here all meals for French breakfast. The tradition of eating a large meal mid-day continues at dinner time in France.
Of course hotels and bed and breakfasts across Sicily provide a feast for breakfast, mostly consisting of hams, salamis, cheeses, cornetti, pastries, cakes and fresh fruit.
Spain and Italy: toasted bread + soft cheese + fresh fruit or freshly squeezed fruit juice. Greece: paximadia (bread made from whole wheat, chickpea, and barley flour) + olives + cheese. Syria: tahini yogurt with chickpeas + pickles + sliced radishes. Morocco: fried egg in olive oil + soft cheese + olives + flatbread.
The Typical Italian Breakfast
Breakfast or la colazione, is usually eaten at the bar, the Italian equivalent of a cafe or coffee shop, or at home from 7:00 to 10:30am.
Have you ever wondered why the Italian do not get fat despite an abundance of pizza, pasta, and dairy? Well, it is because of the Mediterranean diet! People in Italy enjoy a diet rich in vegetables, fruits, beans, tomatoes, poultry, whole grains, olive oil, red wine, dairy ― and they consume very little red meat.
One of the great traditional divides in Italian cookery has been the use of cooking fats, with the North preferring butter and Central and Southern Italy relying on olive oil.