Know before you go: 10x Italian delicacies you might want to avoid

Not ordering a Margherita pizza or spaghetti alla Bolognese for once? Then go for Maccheroni con la Trippa, Rane Fritte or Casu Marzu. If you dare…

Casu Marzu

Literally: rotten cheese. And that is not meant figuratively. This Sardinian cheese is aged for so long that it goes far beyond the stage of being overripe. That attracts – surprise, surprise – little creatures. Long story short: the cheese is full of maggots, which, fun detail, can jump very high. The cheese was banned for a while, but not anymore, so you can find it everywhere again. How hip: rotten food.

Gnummareddi

This ‘traditional dish’ (then you know what time it is) comes from Apulia, in the heel of the boot. Offal (in the broadest sense of the word) from lambs and sheep and goats is cut into pieces, mixed and seasoned with whatever the region has to offer. The mixture is then stuffed into an intestine and wrapped in strips of intestine. Delicious on the BBQ!

Maccheroni con la Trippa

Macaroni, delicious. But with what? Tripe. And white wine. And Parmesan. And even more Parmesan: the applesauce of Italy.

Cima alla Genovese

Once sliced, the stuffed veal breast looks beautiful. It is a true centerpiece, eaten cold as a starter or on a sandwich. The filling is what makes it so pretty; the bright orange carrots and vivid green peas really stand out. It is also filled with brains.

Polpo alla Luciana

The fishermen of Santa Lucia, in Naples on the coast, knew how to catch the best octopuses in terracotta amphorae, and used them to make this tasty dish. It is still a true classic. The little octopuses are cooked with tomatoes, capers and black olives. Mamma mia! If only it weren’t for those suckers…

Rigatoni con la pagliata

Or ‘pajata’, as they say in Rome. It is the small intestine of a suckling calf. So the little animal has never had anything other than milk, and the contents of the intestine (milk, that is) are not rinsed out but actually eaten. Strange fellows, those Romans.

Melanzane al cioccolato

In the ‘a little strange, but delicious’ category: aubergines with chocolate. A dessert, then. Italians themselves find it a little strange too, but delicious nonetheless.

Cibreo

Apparently, this was Catherine de’ Medici’s favourite dish, and she once almost ate herself to death on it. Through her marriage, she moved to France, but not without taking her Florentine chefs with her. She unmistakably left her mark on French cuisine, but this did not go down well with them. It is a sauce full of chicken livers and hearts, cockscombs and wattles, and the unlaid eggs from a freshly slaughtered chicken.

Rane fritte

Everything tastes good when you fry it, so we have complete confidence in the taste of battered fried frogs.

Zampone

Another dish that is essentially delicious but whose presentation creates a hurdle for Dutch eyes, which are rarely confronted with the fact that meat comes from a dead animal. Zampone is a partially boned pig’s trotter. Only the skin casing remains intact. The hollow trotter is then filled with a mixture of pork, pork skin and herbs. The stuffed trotter is boiled and sliced. It is a kind of doughnut; Italians traditionally eat it around New Year’s Eve.

Read also:

• Know before you go: 12x French dishes you might want to avoid
• Know before you go: 8x Spanish delicacies you might want to avoid
• 7x you can eat these things, but do you really want to?

Header image: Maccheroni con la Trippa