Italian Breakfast Food - The First
Touch of Flavor

Italian breakfast foods are many. Regularly consumed, within a balanced diet they has a positive influence on lifestyle and helps to improve, in every age, state of health, reducing the risk of overweight and obesity.

The "Prima Colazione" (breakfast) is a very important moment in Italy. Especially for kids, breakfast gives energy to awaken body and brain, releasing it gradually so that it retains the level of attention and a sense of satiety. The best breakfast is a mix of complex carbohydrates, proteins, fats and simple sugars. A model that is well known in Italy and exported abroad.

Go-ahead for toast or the classic slice of warm baked bread and all the bread derivatives such as biscuits, rusks, bakery single portions, coated with chocolate and hazelnut cream and jam, together with milk, tea, coffee, or orange juice, yogurt with nuts and cereals for those who love light weight, without forgetting the fresh fruit.

What is "Colazione"?

The word "breakfast" comes from the Latin "collatio" (put together): in the Middle Ages monks met after work in the fields, to pray and to eat a cold plate before going to sleep. This was the second "collatio". Later the name "prima colazione (breakfast)" has become synonymous with "morning meal".

For Italians, the symbol of Italian breakfast food is certainly a nice cup of espresso, or a "cappuccino" (half milk, half coffee) for those who want to accompany biscuits, croissants or pastries or a "caffè macchiato" (coffee with a shot of milk) for those who like the strong taste of coffee but do not love the sweetness of the milk.

Breakfast is also the mirror of the times and of different food cultures of the nation. Italians love to do it in two ways: eating at home, comfortably seated at a table set in a large kitchen with all the goodies, choosing from a variety of sweet (a cappuccino, a latte and a caffelatte and chocolate, a fresh bun and crisp with butter and jam or butter and honey, a croissant stuffed with cream or jam, brioches with Nutella) or salted (a sandwich with ham and mozzarella cheese, toast stuffed with cheese and cold meats or creamy cheeses such as stracchino cheese, robiola cheese, which can also spread on toast).

If You Want to Break... Fast!

The second possibility, if there is no time for "caffelatte" or before to go to work or school, is to have breakfast at the bar.

In the morning at the bar, a real rite is celebrated with Italian breakfast food: meeting friends, work colleagues, classmates. It has a lot of variants and habits for each region.

In Tuscany, for example, there are slices of rustic bread with frittata filled with salami and cheese. In Emilia Romagna there are bread or piadina with ham. In Rome, all sorts of sandwiches filled with many ingredients. In Sicily, breakfast is made of rice balls with meat, croissants with cream, jam, chocolate, jelly melon or chestnut cream.

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