Meal structure in Italy

Italian meal structure is similar to most other European ones, consisting of breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Late-morning and mid-afternoon snacks, called merenda (plural merende), are also often included in this meal structure. Italians also commonly divide a celebratory meal into several different courses.

Italian breakfast (prima colazione) consists of caffè latte (hot coffee with milk) or coffee with bread or rolls, butter and jam. A cookie-like rusk hard bread, called fette biscottate, and cookies are commonly eaten. Children drink hot chocolate, plain milk, or hot milk with very little coffee. If breakfast is eaten in a bar (coffee shop), it is composed of cappuccino and cornetto (frothed hot milk with coffee and a pastry) or espresso and pastry. Other products, such as breakfast cereals, fruit salad (macedonia), muesli and yogurt, are becoming increasingly common as part of the meal. However, Italian breakfasts vary by region and by season. In some regions, such as Tuscany and Umbria, in the past, people used to drink red wine (notably Chianti) into which they would dip their biscuits.

It is also very common for Italians to have a quick breakfast snack during the middle of the morning (typically a small panino, or bread roll).

Lunch is usually regarded as the most important meal. Most shops close for the pausa pranzo (lunch break) between 13:00 and 16:00. In most schools, children are given a lunch break when they can go home for lunch, or eat at the school cafeteria, or eat a packed lunch. Since the introduction of fast foods, takeaways and frozen and tinned foods, Italians tend to eat less home-made food but fresh food is still quite common and most people buy bread, milk and other foods daily. Many adults still make their own food (e.g., tomato sauce from their own tomatoes) and takeaways are still not very frequent. A typical Italian lunch consists of a first course il primo (pasta, rice or similar), a second-course il secondo (meat or fish) served together with a side dish il contorno (vegetable or salad) and fruit.

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