Italian cuisine — 1889, Pizza Margherita myth · 495

Accessibility 92 reflects how completely pasta and pizza colonised English-speaking weeknights. Technique 84 sits in dough, risotto stirring and the refusal to drown a pasta in sauce. The home pantry around Al dente and the labour behind Spaghetti al pomodoro rarely fit a takeaway box.

Are restaurant versions "authentic"? Restaurant Italian cuisine is one register. Home pots and market stalls are others. Authenticity is a marketing word; technique is not. Cucina italiana is the local name used in this atlas beside Italian cuisine. Italian cuisine is municipal: Neapolitan pizza, Bolognese ragu (not "spaghetti bolognese"), Roman cacio e pepe, Sicilian street sweets, Ligurian pesto. A national menu is a tourist invention.

Chili is Calabrian and southern; the Po Valley cooks butter and sage. Street Italy is pizza al taglio, arancini and a bakery, not a night-market chili row. Italian cuisine is organised by wine / cheese / salumi and pasta / bread / risotto. Emilia is stuffed pasta and pork; Campania is tomato and pizza; Sicily is Arab-Norman sweets and street food; the Veneto is rice and bitter drinks.