Typical products of Italy

Anchovies of the Ligurian sea layered whole in coarse salt to cure, then filleted for pasta, focaccia and sauces.

A dense, sweet-and-sour dark balsamic aged at least twelve years in a battery of shrinking wooden casks, served in a few precious drops.

A local garlic ecotype from the Ferrara plain, distinguished by a bright, uniform white bulb only rarely streaked with pink. The bulb is round, regular and compact, flattened slightly where the roots meet it, and the tunics wrapping each clove are white, sometimes pink-striped.

Milk-fed lamb of the island's free-grazing flocks, tender and delicate, the meat of Sardinian feasts.

Fresh watermelon (Citrullus lanatus) grown on the Reggio Emilia plain, admitted in a round type with the characteristics of Asahi Miyako, its grey-green rind marked with darker green striping, alongside the other permitted types.

Extra-virgin olive oil from the Pescara hinterland, pressed largely from Dritta olives, green, fruity and lightly peppery.

The deep-crimson-fleshed blood orange (Tarocco, Moro, Sanguinello) ripened by Etna's day-night swings.

A cow's-milk cheese of the Asiago plateau, made young and springy (pressato) or aged hard and piquant (d'allevo).

Green asparagus grown on the Bologna plain around Altedo, restricted to a named list of cultivars: Eros, Marte, Franco, Giove and Ercole among them. Any further cultivar has to be cleared with the ministry before it can be used.

The small, tender, sweet-scented basil of the Ligurian coast, the only basil with protected status and the soul of true pesto genovese.

The intensely aromatic yellow-green bergamot grown almost only on this coast, its rind pressed for perfume and its juice for sweets.

A gourd-shaped stretched-curd cow's-milk cheese aged tied in pairs over a beam, firm and piquant.

A gourd-shaped stretched-curd cow's-milk cheese of the Sila highlands, aged tied in pairs over a beam.

A hard aged cheese of mixed sheep's and goat's milk from Moliterno, ripened in ventilated cellars and ridged by the reed basket ('canestro') it is pressed in.

Cured pork neck of the Valle d'Itria, marinated in cooked wine (vincotto) and lightly smoked with fragno-oak bark.

Firm, aromatic sun-dried capers from the windswept volcanic island of Pantelleria, preserved in salt.

The big, round, spineless 'mammola' artichoke of the Roman coast, tender enough to eat almost whole, the base of carciofi alla romana and alla giudia.

A slender, violet, sharply spined artichoke, tender and faintly bitter, eaten raw or braised.

A fruity, gently bitter extra-virgin olive oil of the Metauro valley around Cartoceto.

A small, soft, sweet blend of sheep's and cow's milk from the Montefeltro hills, said to have been Michelangelo's favourite.

An ancient semi-hard cow's-milk cheese from the high Grana valley, crumbly and sharp, sometimes blue-veined with age.

A tiny, intensely bitter dwarf-orange of the Savona coast, candied whole or turned into the dark chinotto drink.

Bright, firm, sweet cherries from the walled town of Marostica at the foot of the Asiago plateau.

Sweet, firm, deep-red cherries from the hills around Vignola, among the finest in Italy.

The belted 'Cinta Senese' heritage pig of the Sienese woods, its dark marbled meat cured into fine prosciutto and salumi.

A grainy, cold-worked dark chocolate made to an ancient Aztec-derived method, the sugar left in crunchy crystals.

A sweet, flattened white onion grown in the sandy coastal soils of Margherita di Savoia, mild enough to eat raw.

The long, torpedo-shaped purple-red onion of the Tyrrhenian coast, sweet and mild enough to eat raw or turn into jam.

Sweet, seedless, deep-orange clementines grown along the warm Ionian gulf of Taranto.

Sugar-coated almonds from Sulmona, made since the Renaissance and wired into elaborate flowers for weddings and celebrations.

A cured neck muscle, unpressed so it stays a true cylinder some 25 to 40 cm long and never lighter than 1.3 kg. A correctly matured slice shows no yellow or soft fat and no interior mould, the marks the disciplinare uses to define a badly cured one.

A salted and air-dried whole neck muscle from the Piacenza hills, cased and tied so it cures into a cylinder that tapers slightly at one end. Sliced, it is compact and even, deep red marbled with the rosy white of its own fat, and it turns sweeter and more delicate the longer it matures.

A large fresh sausage of pork meat, rind and fat, seasoned and cased, traditionally simmered for hours and served with lentils at New Year. It shares its filling, its zone and its history with Zampone Modena, which packs the same mixture into a boned trotter.

The prized heart of the ham, salted, cased in a bladder and aged in the damp Po fogs of Zibello into a sweet, pear-shaped cured meat.

Tiny, tender beans of many colours grown by the shores of Lake Trasimeno, an ancient near-lost crop.

A prized small white bean of the Nervia valley village of Pigna, thin-skinned and buttery, stewed with the local goat.

Prized borlotti, and cannellini-type beans grown in the cool Agri valley around Sarconi, thin-skinned, delicate and quick-cooking.

An ancient emmer wheat (farro) grown high around Monteleone di Spoleto, nutty and firm in soups.

Sweet Dottato figs sun-dried in the Crati valley, eaten plain or stuffed with almonds and dipped in chocolate.

A soft, crumbly Tuscan salami of coarse pork seasoned generously with wild fennel flowers and seeds, fragrant and slightly sweet.

A hard, smoky raw sheep's-milk cheese shaped by shepherds and lightly smoked over aromatic wood, aged to a sharp, resiny depth.

The great semi-soft mountain cheese of Alpine cow's milk, sweet and melting, the heart of fonduta and countless Valdostan dishes.

A Carnian cheese made by crumbling and re-pressing several aged mountain cheeses with milk, salt and pepper into a piquant paste.

Cheese buried and matured in tufa pits, the fossa that give it its name, straddling the Romagna-Marche border at Sogliano al Rubicone. The finished rind runs from ivory-white to amber-yellow, and the pit ageing gives it the pungent, mushroomy character it is known for.

Wild porcini gathered in the chestnut and beech woods of the upper Taro valley, and the first mushroom anywhere in Europe to be given a protected designation. It covers the fruiting bodies of four Boletus species, each with its own local name, picked from spontaneous growth only.

An Alpine liqueur distilled from the wild silvery genepì wormwood of the high peaks, aromatic and bittersweet.

Turin's ingot-shaped melting chocolate of cocoa and Piedmont hazelnut paste, created when Napoleon's blockade made cocoa scarce.

A soft, creamy cow's-milk blue cheese veined with blue-green mould, sold sweet and mild or sharp and piccante.

A hard, grainy cow's-milk cheese of the Po valley aged in giant drums, milder and younger-eaten than Parmigiano.

Cured pork cheek rubbed with pepper and aged, fattier and deeper than pancetta, rendered down as the fat base of Rome's four great pastas.

Pork back fat cured with salt, rosemary and spices in basins carved from local Carrara marble, then sliced almost translucent.

Tiny, thin-skinned mountain lentils grown high above Capracotta, quick-cooking and delicate.

Large, fragrant, thick-skinned lemons of the Sorrento peninsula, rich in essential oils, the base of limoncello.

Pure licorice from the wild roots of the Ionian coast, prized as the finest, sold as glossy black sticks and pastilles.

An ultra-thin, all-egg dried pasta cut fine as thread and dried in nests, the pride of Campofilone.

Large, sweet, glossy chestnuts from the Mugello Apennines, roasted or milled into sweet flour.

A small, flattened, rosy-cheeked mountain apple with tart, perfumed flesh that keeps all winter.

The crisp, sweet-tart mountain apples (above all Golden Delicious) grown on the sunny terraces of the Non valley.

The 'queen of apples', small, crisp, flat-topped apples laid cheek-down to ripen on straw beds in Campanian orchards until the skin flushes red.

A rare round red-orange aubergine from Rotonda that looks like a tomato, with firm, slightly bitter and spicy flesh, usually preserved in oil.

Alpine honeys of the high meadows and forests, from acacia and wildflower to dark honeydew.

High-altitude honeys from Alpine wildflowers and rhododendron, delicate and pale.

The region's only exclusively-Molisan protected product, a fruity green oil pressed from Gentile di Larino and Aurina olives.

An Alpine cooked cow's-milk cheese first made by Benedictine monks, eaten fresh and springy or aged hard and grainy, and fried into frico.

A large, silky pink cooked pork sausage studded with white fat cubes and pistachios, gently spiced, the pride of Bologna.

Small cured pork sausages from the Campotosto highlands, each hiding a central column of lardo; aged hung in pairs.

Whole candied fruits suspended in a clear, fiery mustard-spiked syrup, served with boiled meats and cheese.

The 'Tonda Gentile' round hazelnut of the Langhe, reckoned the finest in the world and the heart of gianduja chocolate.

Round, sweet hazelnuts from Giffoni in the Picentini hills, prized by confectioners across Europe.

Round, sweet hazelnuts from the volcanic Cimini and Sabatini hills north of Rome, prized for confectionery.

The small, sweet, brown-purple olive of the western Riviera, eaten in brine or pressed for the region's finest oil.

The salted, rolled and matured belly of the same Piacenza pig tradition that gives Coppa and Salame Piacentino. It cures into a cylinder of 4 to 8 kg whose slice is a vivid red laced with the white of the fat, sweet and savoury rather than sharp.

The shepherd's paper-thin, brittle crisp-bread baked twice into wafer-like golden sheets that keep for months, 'carta da musica'.

A tall, golden durum-wheat sourdough from Altamura with a thick crackling crust and a long-keeping amber crumb, baked in wood ovens since antiquity.

A tall durum-wheat sourdough loaf from Matera with a thick dark crust and a golden, long-keeping crumb, traditionally shaped like a high horn or cottage loaf.

The unsalted 'sciocco' Tuscan bread with a crisp crust and open crumb, made to carry salty salumi and to thicken soups.

The 'king of cheeses', a hard, granular cow's-milk cheese aged one to three-plus years in vast drums, made only from raw evening-and-morning milk within a strictly bounded zone.

Bronze-die durum pasta slow-dried in the sea air of Gragnano since the 1500s, its rough surface made to grip sauce.

A rare pecorino from the Gran Sasso foothills, uniquely set with pork rennet and traditionally made by women; aged to a piquant, complex depth.

A hard, salty sheep's-milk cheese aged in tall drums, the sharp grating cheese behind carbonara, gricia, amatriciana and cacio e pepe.

A sweet, thin-skinned, low-moisture red pepper of the Sinni valley, strung up and sun-dried, then flash-fried crisp to make the region's famous peperoni cruschi.

The everyday flatbread of Romagna, cooked on a hot plate and folded around cheese, cured meat or greens. It runs from ivory-white to dark amber, blistered with the characteristic amber spots on both faces, and smells like bread just out of the oven.

The intensely green, aromatic pistachio grown on the black lava soils of Bronte below Etna, harvested only every other year.

A ball of minced smoked meat (once game) rolled in cornmeal and smoked over the hearth, from the Val Tramontina.

Small, intensely sweet cherry and cluster tomatoes grown in the sun-baked south-eastern tip of Sicily.

The king of plum tomatoes, long, thin-walled and low in seeds, grown in the volcanic Sarno-Nocera plain and prized peeled for sauce.

A whole pig boned, herbed with rosemary, garlic and pepper and slow-roasted into a long roll with crackling skin, the great Roman street sandwich filling.

A sweet, rosy cured ham aged in the mountain air of Carpegna, lightly salted and rounded in flavour.

A raw cured ham whose every stage, from salting through to full maturation, must happen inside the Modena zone, attested by a mark burned into the rind. Legs come only from pigs born, raised and slaughtered in ten listed Italian regions.

A pear-shaped mountain-cured ham of the high Valnerina, dry-salted and aged over a year to a savoury depth.

Italy's most exported cured ham: a raw, salt-cured leg from heavy Italian pigs, matured a minimum of 14 months in the hill air south of Parma. Nothing but pork and sea salt goes into it, with no nitrates, nitrites or preservatives permitted, and only hams that pass the final inspection are fire-branded with the five-pointed ducal crown.

A gently beechwood-smoked cured ham from the high village of Sauris, sweet and lightly smoky.

A semi-hard stretched-curd cow's-milk cheese of the Lattari mountains, shaped like a small melon and aged tied with cord.

A pungent, smear-ripened cow's-milk cheese of the Val di Fassa, its damp orange rind hiding a supple, aromatic paste.

The elongated wine-red chicory of Treviso with crisp white ribs, bittersweet, grilled or eaten raw.

An open, rose-shaped chicory of creamy leaves flecked with wine-red, mild and tender.

A sweet, fine-grained fresh sheep's-milk ricotta made from the whey of pecorino, eaten fresh or baked into tarts.

Italy's first DOP rice, grown in the cool Baraggia paddies, firm, pearly grains that hold their bite in risotto.

A short, plump risotto rice of the Verona lowlands that drinks up broth while keeping its bite, the grain of risi e bisi.

A delicate, sweet, pale-gold extra-virgin olive oil pressed mostly from Taggiasca olives of the two Rivieras.

A small, soft, fresh goat's, (and cow's-) milk cheese of the Langa Astigiana, milky and faintly tangy.

A lean cured pork salami studded with cubes of prized lardo, from the paper-making town of Fabriano.

A cured pork salami of the Oltrepò hills, coarsely bound and gently spiced, matured in the Staffora valley air.

A Parma salami of coarsely ground pork in a natural casing, named for the village of Felino in the hills south-west of the city. It is cylindrical and slightly irregular, one end thicker than the other, dusted white-grey by the native surface moulds that develop as it hangs.

The third of the Piacenza cured-pork DOPs alongside Coppa and Pancetta. Cylindrical, 400 g to 1 kg, sliced it is vivid red flecked with the rosy-white lentils of its own fat, and the taste is sweet and delicate, its fragrance shaped closely by how long it has hung.

Hand-raked sea salt from the shallow coastal pans of Trapani and Marsala, dried by sun and wind.

Extra-virgin oil from island olives such as Bosana, fruity, faintly bitter and peppery.

One of Italy's rarest salumi, a large hand-tied pork salami of Conca Casale seasoned with wild fennel, coriander and orange peel.

A pressed, spicy pork salami spiked with the region's sweet and hot peperoncino, matured firm.

A large, soft, coarsely-ground pork salami of the Vicenza country, gently spiced and matured.

A soft, spreadable, milky-white fresh cow's-milk cheese with a faintly sour tang, classically eaten in a warm piadina.

A soft stretched-curd cow's-milk cheese of Agnone worked into a flat, folded ribbon, milky and mild.

The thin, hard, spiced rye flatbread of South Tyrol, flavoured with fennel and caraway and dried to keep for months.

A small, dark, intensely sweet plum of the Sarca valley around Dro, eaten fresh or dried.

A square, soft washed-rind cow's-milk cheese with a thin pinkish crust and a buttery, tangy paste.

The prized white truffle of the Langhe hills, dug in autumn and shaved raw over tajarin and eggs, Piedmont's most coveted delicacy.

The prized black and white truffles of the Alto Molise woods, which yield a large share of Italy's harvest.

The prized black winter truffle of the Valnerina, shaved over strangozzi and eggs across Umbria.

An intense, spicy-bitter extra-virgin olive oil of the Trieste Carso, from Bianchera olives.

Extra-virgin olive oil of the Bari hinterland from Coratina and Ogliarola olives, green, robust and peppery; Puglia is Italy's oil heartland.

The hard or soft honey-and-egg-white nougat packed with almonds, made in Cremona since a Renaissance wedding feast.

Green, peppery extra-virgin olive oil pressed from Frantoio and Moraiolo olives of the Tuscan hills.

Trout from the region's cold spring rivers, filleted and cold-smoked to a delicate rosy flesh.

Trout raised in the cold, clear mountain streams and lakes of Trentino, firm-fleshed and delicate.

A green, peppery extra-virgin olive oil of the Umbrian hills, from Moraiolo and Frantoio olives.

A semi-skimmed cow's-milk cheese, eaten young and mild or aged hard and sharp, sometimes scented with mountain herbs.

A cured, herb-and-spice-rubbed raw ham from the high hamlet of Saint-Rhémy-en-Bosses, aged in the thin mountain air.

Pork back fat cured in brine with mountain herbs and spices in wooden 'doils', sliced translucent and eaten on rye bread with honey.

A coarse hand-cut pork salami of the Vasto hinterland, seasoned generously with sweet and hot peperoncino and fennel, stuffed into a natural casing and aged for months.

Hand-picked saffron from the Navelli plain, among the world's most prized; the three crimson stigmas of each crocus flower are plucked at dawn and dried gently over embers.

Aromatic hand-picked saffron of the Cascia and Città della Pieve uplands, revived from a medieval trade.

Intensely coloured, aromatic saffron hand-picked around San Gavino Monreale, colouring the island's breads and malloreddus.

The Modena Christmas dish: a boned front trotter stuffed with a seasoned mix of pork meat, rind and fat, then either sold fresh for long boiling or pre-cooked and sterilised in its pack. Cotechino Modena is the same filling in a plain casing rather than the trotter.