Parlo Italiano (somewhat)

I have been working with an Italian tutor for several months. My teacher, or professoressa is Gina. Gina is from beautiful northern Italy and teaches Italian to students all over the world. I am so fortunate to have her as my insegnate (teacher). Learning Italian is not easy and requires a lot of studying. You have to stop thinking in English and start thinking in Italian - try to tell your brain that! Especially after a long day of work! Slowly but surely things are starting to sink in and hopefully I will be ready for my first solo trip to Italy in March! I will share with you interesting facts about the Italian language along the way.

Italian is a "romance language" and the beauty of the language matches the beauty of the landscape. Italian has similarities to Spanish, Portuguese, French and Romainian languages and was born from Latin. According to Wikipedia, "Sardinian and Italian are the least divergent from Latin, while French has changed the most". Many of our English words are born from Latin. An example is the word "salary". Salary comes from the Latin word for salt or "sale". In Roman times, salt was used to pay workers instead of a currency. Salt was extremely important for cooking and preservation of food so it was considered very valuable. If you have every had bread in Tuscany, you will find it is very bland (sorry, Tuscany!) compared to other regions of Italy. This is because salt was a precious commodity so the bread was prepared unsalted and has been continued to be produced in this way. I will be sharing an amazingly easy recipe for crusty Italian-style bread soon.

Tonight I will be making one of my favorite Italian foods - saffron risotto which is one of the most famous dishes from Milan (Milano). Magnifico!

Valeria