(photo: Wild Fennel Seed (Semi di Finocchietto Selvatico) from Sicilia; you can use the seed as is or crush it via a mortar and pestle for savory and sweet dishes) Wild fennel, or Finocchietto Selvatico, can be found throughout most parts of southern Italy and is part of the staple diet for many Calabrians, Sicilians, etc.  My father tells romantic stories of foraging for wild […]

(photo:  The lovely Taggiasca olive from Liguria in northwestern Italy)  We often talk about the importance of the Italian pantry and how critical it is to have certain staple ingredients in your kitchen at all times.  Keeping a well stocked pantry means you’ll never starve, order out, and be relegated to a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner.  Among the universal items we keep […]

  (photo: the highly prized white truffle – courtesy of Alma Gourmet) Truffle Primer  One of my favorite aspects of visiting Italy in the Summer and Fall months is the abundance of festivals scattered throughout the country.  In Calabria alone, for example, the summer months include food festivals focused on bread, salt cod, wild boar, eggplant, red chiles, potato, etc. […]

Pan Fried Skate with Pancetta and Red Onion Risotto One of my favorite ways to eat is to simply head to the market and pick out items that look fresh, tasty, and don’t break the bank (this week a particularly nice item was fresh Skate).  Don’t get me wrong I’m not heading to the market every other day (like Nonna […]

Update: Contest closed; the winner has been notified.   Scordo.com has partnered with our friends over at ItalianBarber.com for a great giveaway, sorry ladies this one is geared towards men who can grow facial hair (but read on if you want to win a great gift for your boyfriend or husband!). ItalianBarber.com is run by two second-generation Italians who live via […]

(photo:Italian durum wheat pasta made by Carlo) When it comes to reviewing Italian products we’re pretty blunt and we’ve, unfortunately, offended a few Italian product manufacturers with not so positive feedback.  In fact, when companies approach us to review already prepared products we often turn them away for fear of writing yet another negative review.  In turn, many of our favorite […]

(photo: the author of Cucina Povera, Pamela Sheldon Johns) If you were to tell people that Italy and America have a few things in common you’d most likely receive some awkward stares.  After all, America is a country driven by capitalism and rationality while Italy operates under a lifestyle driven worldview with importance placed on living well and understanding the subtleties of day to day existence […]

When folks discover that I have an Italian last time, as well as parents who were born in Italy, they immediately ask if I speak Italian.  My answer is a definite yes though I always qualify my fluency with the fact that I grew up speaking a regional, southern Italian, dialect. Dialects, of course, are examples of full blown languages with […]

You have to love any establishment that sells over 200,000 pounds of Italian cheese in a given week, in turn we’ve fallen deeply in love with the Pittsburgh based, Pennsylvania Macaroni Company.  The Italian food store was started in 1902 by Sicilian immigrants from Trabia and they now carry well over 5,000 Italian specialty items, including an online business that will slice […]

  (photo: note the wonderful golden brown color of the Colatura di Alici) What takes 12 months to age and is extracted during an age old curing process, hint it’s not a pork product (cue the Jeopardy music).  The answer is Colatura di Alici or anchovy syrup and is produced by Ittica Alimentare Salerno, located in the small village of Cetara, south […]