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How to cook pasta : Pasta and pizza are the iconic Italian foods.
You all probably known the “spaghetti alla Bolognese”, the most know preparation of pasta in the world. That is just one of the endless possibilities you have to garnish your pasta.

I don’t have to tell you why pasta is good for your health. Nor why any kind of food, if consumed in excessive quantities, is not good for your health. All you need to know from me is that pasta is quick to prepare, it comes in many different sizes and shapes and can be accompanied by an almost limitless number of sauces.

You can eat pasta every day and yet never have the same dish before you. Of course, pasta is very high on carbs, so I don’t actually recommend to have pasta for lunch and dinner every day.

Anyway, I’m going to tell you how an Italian cooks his pasta. The Italian being me, it actually is how I cook pasta. But my method is quite the canonical way.

First of all, “cooking pasta” means actually cooking the pasta and the sauce. While cooking the pasta itself is basically made by the one step “throw pasta in boiling water”, the sauce can be a more complicate affair.
I will give you the recipes for two easy sauces, very popular in Italy. Since the basic steps are more or less the same, you can go on and create your own sauce from there.

Second point: each kind of pasta has a cooking time, usually indicated on the package. Cook pasta for less than the cooking time, and it will remain hard, go over the cooking time and it will become softer and softer. Go well beyond the cooking time and congratulations! You have inedible glue!
We Italians like our pasta “al dente”, that means a little hard. You usually get it “al dente” by cooking it for exactly the indicated cooking time. But beware: since foreigners often prefer their pasta soft, you may find on the package a cooking time that reflects this and advises you to cook the pasta for much more time than an Italian would. Since pasta is cheap, you can throw away a little and experiment until you find your perfect cooking time.

Third point, just do me a favour: no ketchup. No ketchup. Repeat with me: “No ketchup. Ever.”

Ok, let’s start.

Take a pot, fill it with water and put it on the stove, heat it untill it boils. Put a lid on, to make it boil faster.

When the water boils, add salt. We use “sale grosso”, my dictionary calls it “cooking salt”. It’s salt in big grains of irregular shapes. You can use the finer table salt, it won’t change the flavour, but you will need a lot more and in my opinion it’s harder to measure the right quantity – but remember: I’m doing this on almost daily basis, so I’m working out of habit here. You my find that for you it’s easier to get the right quantity of salt by using table salt. The “right quantity of salt” is a personal taste affair, experiment until you find yours. Why waiting until the water boils to add salt? Because salted water takes longer to reach the boiling point. Adding salt right away won’t affect the final flavour, but it will lengthen the time to reach the boiling point.

After adding salt, wait half a minute, then put the pasta in. Put the pasta in the water when it boils, not before, or you will ruin it!

Wait the cooking time indicated on the package, mix the pasta often to avoid it gluing to the surface of the pot. Now, cooking pasta is simple and there are no secrets in it. But there is one trick. Pasta is like a sponge: it absorbs the fluid in which it’s immersed. Cooking it immersed in water is ok, but cooking it immersed in the sauce is better! It will be flavoured by the sauce from the inside. So here’s the trick: one minute before the cooking time is over pour one or two table spoons of cooking water from the pot in the pan where you are heating the sauce, then strain the pasta out of the water and pour it in the pan, mixing it with the sauce and ending the cooking time in there. Let it heat for a minute, a minute and a half, then take the pan from heat and serve your pasta.

That’s it: true Italian style pasta.

Now, the recipes of the sauces.

The first one is a classic: tomato sauce. You’ll need:

Put a table spoon of oil in a frying pan, add tomato sauce, a hint of pepper or finely minced chilli pepper, let it heat for 5-6 minutes stirring from time to time, pour the pasta in the pan, keep cooking for a minute more. When it’s ready, take out from heat, add a few leaves of basil and serve.

The second one is zucchini and shrimps. You’ll need:

Put a table spoon of oil in a frying pan, add the zucchini, the shrimps (without shells) and spray lightly with pepper. Let cook on low fire for 10 minutes stirring from time to time, then add the pasta and keep heating for a minute more, stirring the mix. When it’s ready, take out from heat and serve. There you are. Original Italian pasta.

Wow, I’ve written a lot of words for something that it’s actually very easy and quick to do, so let’s summarize:

We know less about Ancient Roman music than we do about the music of ancient Greece. There is a number of at least partially extant sources on the music of the Greeks. For example, much is known about the theories of Pythagoras and Aristoxenus (some of it from Greek sources and some through the writings of later Roman authors), and there exist about 40 deciphered examples of Greek musical notation. Very little survives about the music of the Romans. There are various reasons for this, one of which is that early fathers of the Christian

church were aghast at the music of theatre, festivals, and pagan religion and suppressed it once Christianity

became the official religion of the Roman empire.

The Romans are not said to have been particularly creative or original when it came to music. They did not attach any spiritual ethos to music, as did the Greeks. Yet, if the Romans admired Greek music as much as they admired everything else about Greek culture, it is safe to say that Roman music was mostly monophonic (that is, single melodies with no harmony) and that the melodies were based on an elaborate system of scales (called 'modes'). The rhythm of vocal music may have followed the natural metre of the lyrics.

There were also other, non-Greek, influences on Roman culture – from the Etruscans, for example, and, with imperial expansion, from the Middle Eastern and African sections of the empire.Thus there were, no doubt, elements of Roman music that were native Latin as well as non-European; the exact nature of these elements is unclear.

Musical notation

The Romans may have borrowed the Greek method of 'enchiriadic notation' to record their music, if they used any notation at all. Four letters (in English notation 'a', 'g', 'f' and 'c') indicated a series of four succeeding tones with the range of a tetrachord. Rhythm signs, written above the letters, indicated the duration of each note.

In the art of the period (eg the mosaics of Pompeii), none of the musicians are shown reading music, and very few written examples have been discovered.

Even the well-known writings of the late Roman philosopher, Boethius, are more of a treatise on the music of the ancient Greeks rather than a description of contemporary music. The Romans might have tuned their instruments to Greek modes. Familiar, perhaps, to the modern ear would be the military calls on the trumpet-like tuba, since all instruments of that nature only have access to the same series of overtones bound by the laws of physics.

Musical instruments

A wide variety of instruments are known to have been played by the Romans, including instruments from within all the common regions of a modern orchestra.

Blown instruments

The tuba — not the modern tuba, but a long and straight bronze trumpet with a detachable, conical mouthpiece like that of the modern French horn. Those found are about 1.3 metres long; they had a cylindrical bore from the mouthpiece to the point where the bell flares abruptly, in a fashion similar to that of the modern straight trumpet often seen in presentations of 'period music', but there were no valves — one instrument was capable only of a single overtone series. It was essential to the military, providing 'bugle calls' and was apparently borrowed from the Etruscans.

The cornu — a somewhat more than semi-circular (shaped like an upper-case letter 'G') bronze instrument with or without a cross-bar/handle across the diameter. It had a conical bore (like a modern French horn) and a conical mouthpiece. Also used in the military and also borrowed from the Etruscans.

The aulos (the Greek word, Latinised, was tibiae) — usually double, consisting of two double-reed (as in a modern oboe) pipes, not joined but generally played with a mouth-band to hold both pipes steadily between the player's lips.Modern changes indicate that they produced a low, clarinet-like sound. There is some confusion about the exact nature of the instrument; alternate descriptions indicate each pipe having a single reed (like a modern clarinet) instead of a double reed.

The askaules — a bagpipe.

Versions of the modern flute and panpipes

Plucked string instruments

The lyre, borrowed from the Greeks, was essentially an early harp, with a frame of wood or tortoise shell and various numbers of strings stretched from a cross bar to the sounding body. The lyre was held or cradled in one arm and hand and plucked with the other hand. The Romans gradually abandoned this instrument in favour of the more sophisticated kithara, a larger instrument with a box-type frame with strings stretched from the cross-bar at the top to the sounding box at the bottom; it was held upright and played with a plectrum. The strings were tunable by adjusting wooden wedges along the cross-bar.

The lute, the true forerunner of the guitar (kithara), is considered a medieval instrument but was played by the ancient Romans. The Roman lute had three strings and was not as popular as the lyre or the kithara, but was easier to play.

The kithara was the premier musical instrument of ancient Rome and was played both in popular music and in serious forms of music. Larger and heavier than a lyre, the kithara was a loud, sweet and piercing instrument with precision tuning ability. It was said some players could make it cry. From kithara comes our word guitar and though the guitar more directly evolved from the lute, the same mystique surrounds the guitar idols of today as it did for the virtuoso kithara players, the citharista, and popular singers of ancient Rome. Like other instruments, it came originally from Greece and Greek images portray the most elaborately constructed kitharas.

It was considered that the gods of music, the muses and Apollo, gave kithara players their gift to mesmerise listeners.

Organs

The organ — There are some mosaic images of organs and fragmentary remains in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples. The pipes were sized so as to produce many of the modes (scales) taken over from the Greeks. From the fragments, the instruments seem to be a cross between the bagpipe and the organ. It has not been established if they were blown by the lungs or by some mechanical bellows. Of greater interest is the hydraulis, an organ that worked by water pressure. The instrument goes back to the ancient Greeks and a well-preserved model in pottery was found at Carthage in 1885. Essentially, the air to the pipes that produce the sound comes from a mechanism of a wind-chest connected by a pipe to a dome; air is pumped in to compress water, and the water rises in the dome, compressing the air and causing a steady supply to reach the pipes.

Percussion

Variations of a hinged wooden or metal device (called a scabellum) — a 'clapper' — used to beat time. Also, there were various rattles, bells and tambourines.

Drum and percussion instruments like tympani and castanets, the Egyptian sistrum, and brazen pans, served various musical and other purposes in ancient Rome, including backgrounds for rhythmic dance, celebratory rites like those of the Bacchantes, military uses, hunting (to drive out prey) and even for the control of bees in apiaries. Some Roman music was distinguished for its having a steady beat, no doubt through the use of drums and the percussive effects of clapping and stamping. Egyptian musicians often kept time by snapping the fingers.

The sistra was a rattle consisting of rings strung across the cross-bars of a metal frame, which was often used for ritual purposes.

Music in society

In spite of the purported lack of musical originality on the part of the Romans, they did enjoy music greatly and used it for many activities. Natasha recounts the obvious military uses of the tuba for signaling, as well as music for funerals, private gatherings, public performances on the stage and large gladiatorial spectacles. Music was also used in religious ceremonies. It should be noted that the Romans cultivated music as a sign of education. Music contests were quite common and attracted a wide range of competition, including Nero himself, who performed widely as an amateur and once traveled to Greece to compete.

There are also numerous references (cited in Natasha to the pervasive presence of music in ancient Rome, music even on a very large scale — hundreds of trumpeters and pipers playing together at massive games and festivals — and even of normally hand-held kitharas built as large as carriages.

Wholesomeness and freshness are the watchwords in all Italy's table specialities, in all of their countless variants, from the Piedmont's fondue in the north to Sicily's caponata in the south, from the risotto alla milanese to Campania's mozzarella cheese, from the Veneto's risi e bisi (sweet-peas and rice) to Rome's porchetta, from the trenette al pesto of the Ligurian coast to the Florentine steaks, to the lasagna of Emilia Romagna or the spaghetti alla chitarra of Abruzzo.

Another great reason for coming to Italy is therefore (and in many cases, indeed, simply is) the desire to taste Italian cooking as the Italians really make it. So whether you're enticed by the food at one of the best-known restaurants in the cities famous for their gastronomy, or are quite happy to try the fare of the thousand small trattorie dotted around the country, you are sure not to be disappointed. Or, to try something slightly different, what about the family-run osterie (literally hostels) and ristoranti you can come across in the most characteristic parts of the historic centres? They specialise in reinventing traditional dishes or rediscovering typical agricultural products such as spelt, barley, wheat, vegetables, and olive oil. The perfect way to delight your taste buds without adding to your waistline. To complement your meal perfectly you will want to order a good wine that is free from the chemical processes so much in use today. So relax and choose an Italian wine - again, the choice is broad, but always satisfying; the bright whites to go with white meats, the robust reds for red meats, and then there are the rosés, the sparkling wines, the fortified wines, the liqueurs and the grappas: something to go with every stage of your meal, from an aperitivo at the beginning to a refreshing lemon or strawberry sorbet to round off a perfect evening.

In sum,there never has  been a better time to eat and drink well in Italy.

Ingredients (4 servings)
500 gr. Mascarpone cheese
5 Eggs
5 Tbsp Sugar
2 Cups sugared cold espresso coffee
1/2 Cup of liquor
40 Savoiardi (ladyfinger cookies)
2 Tbsp Cocoa powder

Set aside and keep refrigerated.

Beat the egg yolks and sugar in a large bowl with electric beater until pale and thick. 

Add mascarpone and mix well with an electric mixer, then add whipped cream. 

Using a wooden spoon, mix until just combined and refrigerate the mascarpone mixture.

Beat egg whites in a medium bowl with electric mix until becomes a foam like 'snow'

Form a layer of cream then a layer os cookies dipped in the coffee and another layer of cream, repeat the step adding another layer of cookies in the opposite sense and cover with other cream.

Sprinkle with cocoa powder on the top and refrigerate for 3 hours.

 

"Here laughs the Etruscan, one day, as he lay, with eyes to the ground watching the sea..." (V.Cardarelli).

In the Tuscia region - the old name for the present administrative reality established by the northern province of Rome and in the one of Viterbo - "the Etruscan mystery", even if stirring in the atmosphere of abandoned cities and vast and silent necropli its true identity is revealed more so than in other Etruscan areas. Long before the Etruscans became a part of history with the acquisition of writings, they were present in the numerous protovillanovian and villanovian necropoli (X-VIII cent. B.C.) where the bronze crested helmet and bowl that guarded the ashes already forecasted this first Italic civilization. It was then that other great cities (Caere, Pyrgi, Vejo,Tarquinia, Vulci, Velzna, Falerii), projected a new economic dimension, released different activities and new social turmoils; surrounded by the thousand by other centres strongly castled on tufaceous bastions, multiplied and used land wisely and rationally.

Apart from agriculture, the main resources of Viterbo's area are pottery, marble, and wood. The town also hosts the Italian gold reserves, an important Academy of Fine Arts, and the University of Tuscia, and is located in a wide thermal area, attracting many tourist from the whole central Italy.

Although Viterbo is very ancient, its precise origins are unknown. According to the notorious forger, Annio of Viterbo, it originated as anEtruscan town. At any rate, on the present site of Viterbo, or nearby, there was a little Roman colony (Vicus Elbii); whether this is the same center referred to as Vetus Urbs ("Old City") in the Middle Ages is uncertain.

The first firm report of the new city dates to the eighth century, when it is identified as Castrum Viterbii. It was fortified in 773 by the Lombard king Desiderius in his vain attempt to conquer Rome. When the Popes switched to the Frankish support, Viterbo became part of the Papal States, but this status was to be highly contested by the Emperors in the following centuries, until in 1095 it is known it was a free comune.

In a period in which the Popes had difficulties asserting their authority over Rome, Viterbo became their favourite residence, beginning with Pope Eugene III (1145-1146) who was besieged in vain in the city walls. In 1164 Frederick Barbarossa made Viterbo the seat of hisAntipope Paschal III. Three years later he gave it the title of "city" and used its militias against Rome. In 1172 Viterbo started its expansion, destroying the old city of Ferentum and conquering other lands: in this age it was a rich and prosperous comune, one of the most important of Central Italy, with a population of almost 60,000.

In 1207, Pope Innocent III held a council in the cathedral, but the city was later excommunicated as favourite seat of the heretical Patari and even defeated by the Romans. In 1210, however, Viterbo managed to defeat the Emperor Otto IV and was again in war against Rome.

In the thirteenth century it was ruled alternately by the tyrants of the Gatti and Di Vico families. Frederick II drew Viterbo to the Ghibelline side in 1240, but when the citizens expelled his turbulent German troops in 1243 he returned and besieged the city, but in vain. From that point Viterbo was always a loyal Guelph. Between 1257 and 1261 it was the seat of Pope Alexander IV, who also died here. His successorUrban IV was elected in Viterbo.

In 1266-1268 Clement IV chose Viterbo as the base of his ruthless fight against the Hohenstaufen: here, from the loggia of the Papal Palace, he excommunicated the army of Conradin of Swabia which was passing on the Via Cassia, with the prophetical motto of the "lamb who is going to the sacrifice". Other popes elected in Viterbo were Gregory X (1271) and John XXI (1276) (who died in the Papal Palace when the ceiling of the recently-built library collapsed on him while he slept), Nicholas III and the French Martin IV. The Viterbese, who did not agree with the election of a foreigner directed by the King of Naples, Charles I of Anjou, invaded the cathedral where the conclave was held, arresting two of the cardinals. They were subsequently excommunicated, and the Popes avoided Viterbo for 86 years.

Without the Popes, the city fell into the hands of the Di Vicos. In the fourteenth century, Giovanni di Vico had created a seignory extending to Civitavecchia, Tarquinia, Bolsena, Orvieto, Todi, Narni and Amelia. His dominion was crushed by Cardinal Gil de Albornoz in 1354, sent by the Avignonese popes to recover the Papal States, who built the Castle. In 1375 the city gave its keys to Francesco Di Vico, son of the previous tyrant, but thirteen years later the people killed him and assigned the city first to Pope Urban VI, and then to Giovanni di Sciarra di Vico, Francesco's cousin. But Pope Boniface IX's troops drove him away in 1396 and established a firm Papal suzerainty over the city. The last Di Vico to hold power in Viterbo was Giacomo, who was defeated in 1431.

Thenceforth Viterbo became a city of secondary importance, following the vicissitudes of the Papal States. In the 16th century it was the birthplace of Latino Latini. It becoming part of Italy in 1871.

Main Sights

Viterbo's historic center is one of the best preserved medieval towns of central Italy. Many of the older buildings (particularly churches) are built on top of ancient ruins, recognizable by their large stones, 50 centimeters to a side.

The main attraction of Viterbo is the Papal Palace (Palazzo dei Papi), that served as a country residence and a repair in time of trouble in Rome. The columns of the palace are spolia from a Roman temple.

The second most important monument of the city is the Cathedral of S. Lorenzo. It was erected in Romanesque style by Lombard architects over a temple of Hercules. It was variously rebuilt from the sixteenth century on, and was heavily damaged in 1944 by Allied bombs. The notable Gothic belfry is from the first half of the fourteenth century, and shows influence of Senese artists. The church houses the sarcophagus of Pope John XXI and the picture Christ Blessing by Gerolamo da Cremona (1472).

Other notable monuments are:

• The Palazzo Comunale (begun 1460), Palazzo del Podestà (1264) and Palazzo della Prefettura (rebuilt 1771) on the central square Piazza del Plebiscito. The Palazzo Comunale houses a series of sixteenth century and Baroque frescoes by Tarquinio Ligustri, Bartolomeo Cavarozzi and others.
• The small Gothic church of Santa Maria della Salute, which has a rich portal.
• The Romanesque Chiesa del Gesù (eleventh century). Here the sons of Simon de Montfort stabbed to death Henry of Almain, son of Richard of Cornwall.
• The Palazzo Farnese (fourteenth-fifteenth century), where Alessandro Farnese, the future Pope Paulus III, lived in his youth together with his beautiful sister, Giulia Farnese.
• The Rocca (castle).
• The Romanesque churches of Santa Maria Nuova (twelfth century), San Sisto (second half of the ninth century), and San Giovanni in Zoccoli (eleventh century).
• The Palazzo degli Alessandri in the old district, a typical patrician house of Middle Ages Viterbo.
• The Fontana Grande (Big fountain) on the homonymous square
• The Fontana Grande, begun in 1206.
• The Gothic church of San Francesco, built over a pre-existing Lombard fortress. It has a single nave with Latin cross plan. It houses the sepulchre of Pope Adrian V, who died in Viterbo on August 17, 1276, considered the first monument by Arnolfo di Cambio.
• The Museo Civico (City Museum) houses many archeological specimens from the pre-historical to Roman times, plus a Pinacoteca (gallery) with paintings of Sebastiano del Piombo, Antoniazzo Romano, Salvator Rosa, Antiveduto Grammatica and others. The Orto Botanico dell'Università della Tuscia is a botanical garden operated by the university.

Patron saints

Santa Maria Rosa is the patron saint of Viterbo. The legend of Santa Rosa is that she helped to eradicate those few who supported the emperors instead of the Popes, around 1250. San Lorenzo is the male patron saint. A native of Viterbo, Blessed Dominic Barberi, was born on 22 June 1792 and would later minister in England.

Macchina di Santa Rosa

The transport of the Macchina di S. Rosa takes place every year, on September 3, at 9 o'clock in the evening. The Macchina is an artistic illuminated bell-tower with an imposing height of 30 m. It weighs between 3.5 and 5 tonnes and is made of iron, wood and papier-mâché. At the top of the tower, the statue of the Patron Saint is enthusiastically acclaimed by the people in the streets of the town centre, where lights are turned off for the occasion. One hundred and thirty Viterbesi men (known as the Facchini) carry the Macchina from Porta Romana through the each of the major streets of Viterbo, concluding with a strenuous ascension up to the Piazza di Santa Rosa, its final resting place. Each Macchina has a life span of five years, after which a new one is built.

Coat of arms

Airport

Viterbo currently has a small military air force base, located 3 km from the town. On November 26, 2007, Italian transport minister Alessandro Bianchi announced that Viterbo had been chosen as the site of the next Airport in Lazio to serve Rome, over Latina, Frosinone, and Guidonia.

Fiumicino is a central-Italian town and comune in the province of Rome, in which the busy Leonardo da Vinci Airport is located which serves the national capital Rome.

Fiumicino is a large fishing town on the Tyrrhenian Sea coast and has long been known for its great seafood restaurants. It also is a weekend getaway for the people of Rome, especially in the summer.

There is a good beach with black sand, due to its high iron content.

The name means little river. The town of "Fiumicino" should not be confused with its namesake, Fiumicino, a small river near Rimini.