The people of Northern Italy are the most civilized people I have ever met.
After spending eight years in Manchester, I received a very warm welcome to Turin. The people are very easy-going, in contrast to other parts of Italy such as Rome or Naples, where passions run much higher.
I've always liked the Krampus character, and I've always been fascinated with him, especially the tradition that he was such a part of the holiday season in Europe, in Germany, Austria, northern Italy, various other places.
The 'classic' pig is inspired by northern Italy. It is made up of meat and fat, rosemary and garlic, salt and lots of black pepper.
Tarot cards likely originated in northern Italy during the late 14th or early 15th century. The oldest surviving set, known as the Visconti-Sforza deck, was created for the Duke of Milan's family around 1440. The cards were used to play a bridge-like game known as tarocchi, popular at the time among nobles and other leisure lovers.
The ancient boundary of Italy on the north was not the Alps but the Apennines.
Polenta is to northern Italy what bread is to Tuscany, what pasta is to Emilia-Romagna and what rice is to the Veneto: easy to make, hungry to absorb other flavours, and hugely versatile.
Well, Italy had been overrun by the War, there had practically been civil war, north and south of the Gothic Line, heavy bombing, the northern industrial cities had been bombed heavily and we had political disorder before 1948.
I'm definitely looking forward to the day when I stop working - if I ever stop working. I like the idea of keeling over in my tomato vines in Sardinia or northern Italy.
As an Internet celebrity Nutritionist, its wonderful to be sitting in a café in Northern Italy and have a total stranger come up and thank me for me work. But I must say that it certainly keeps me personally walking the walk that I talk.
Fresh egg pasta is traditionally served in the north of Italy with butter, cream and rich meat sauces, whereas dried pasta is more at home with the tomato- and olive oil-based ones of the south.
When I'm in northern Italy, I walk about feeling slightly less of a freak.
