Soc of Arabia, you're a headache, first music and now diet
.
As JB implies, it depends on what parts of Italy you'll visit, although North-South differences have rather abated in these past 20 years, at least in large-city restaurants (small-city or village
trattorias tend to be more parochial in their menus). Until the 1950s,
butter was mostly used in condiments and for frying in the North, olive oil being more expensive as it had to come mostly from the South.
In this connection, let me relate a little story. In the mid 1980s, a fellow IBM instructor had started an intelligent initiative. Since our courses ran from Monday mornings to Friday noons max (to allow participants from outside to get back home during their office hours) and our Friday afternoons were devoted mostly to adminisrative chores, he suggested we'd stage internal lectures on topics strictly unrelated to our jobs.
So an amateur soccer referee expounded on the intricacies of soccer rules, I tried to explain the world of music, and an amateur cook/gourmet addressed Italian cuisine.
He began by quoting Gaius Julius Caesar's famous incipit in
De bello gallico :
Omnia tota Gallia est divisa in partes tres (the whole of Gallia is subdivided into 3 parts) and went on to explain how Italy followed this by using butter in the North, oil from Tuscany southwards, and
pork lard in a limited Northern area (Emilia Romagna, capital Bologna), and how this influenced our various regional menus. In summary, Northern Italy relied heavily on animal-derived products, since the Po valley lends itself better to cattle-raising and pig farms, while the more mountainous Center-South had to content itself with sheep, goats and vegetables. As a matter of fact, the use of
pasta became popular in Northern Italy after WWI, previously the staple product for first courses here was
rice, and
polenta in the poorer Alpine areas.
BTW, the use of lard has decreased considerably in Emilia Romagna, and the region is no longer the Italian leader in fatal heart diseases
.
In conclusion, any major Italian city has eating places offering a wide selection of choices, from pan-Italian to local to regional menus. As for eastern restaurants, you'll also find many alternatives : Chinese mostly (for years they had a policy of talking over Italian restaurants, offering cheap food and getting into trouble with local sanitary authorities, now many have wisened up and may also offer a mixed Chino-Italian menu, since their popularity has worn off), and some Indian, Brazilian, Javanese, etc.
More recently, Arabic and Turkish restaurants have made their appearance, as a consequence of immigration inflow. No special parking place for camels, though
.
Buon appetito !