Subscribe to the Vespa rides and get full access to Your Italian Toolbox, a library of language learning materials that you can use to practice Italian.
We have amazing food bloggers, here in Italy, publishing plenty of great Italian recipes.
Unfortunately, these blogs are all in Italian. So, if you are looking for authenticItalian recipes in English, written and published by Italian bloggers, it can be quite an adventure.
This has always made me a little sad because there are many talented bloggers who can be read in Italian only and this obviously limits their audience. At the same time, I am sad because a lot of English speakers cannot take advantage of great Italian recipes and the stories that go with them – which in my opinion are always the best part of them.
I have recently been asked about Italian food bloggers who write in Englishand since I think this is a very interesting topic, I decided to turn my answer into a blog post listing three of my favorite Italian food bloggers, whose posts are either just in English or have a bilingual version.
I could have done further research and probably come up with a few more of them but I follow these three ladies since their very beginning as food bloggers and writers:I have tried a lot of their recipes over time, always with great results, browsed their books in the library, followed them on social media and I can easily recommend them with no doubts at all.
Let’s find out who these three ladies are, shall we?
The first food blogger I want to tell you about is Giulia Scarpaleggia. If you are passionate about Italian food, I am sure you already know her since she is one of the most popular – and most talented – Italian food bloggers and writers.
Born and bred in Tuscany, Giulia has been sharing her love for cooking on Jul’s Kitchenfor years now and not only she publishes great recipes but also has a very passionate way of describing them. She doesn’t just give a list of ingredients and a procedure but always has a story linked to her recipes, something that has to do with her relationship with food, with the place where she lives and the story of her life.
There’s so much passion for food and Tuscany on her blog that you can’t help but fall in love with her work. Actually, she is also a food writer, a photographer and has published five cookbooks, the first of which, titled I love Toscana, can be found in English, Dutch and Polish (if you are interested, you can find it on Amazon). Moreover, she gives cooking classes too, so keep her name in mind in case you are coming to Italy and want to learn how to prepare some traditional Italian dishes.
My favorite recipes by Giulia are:
This blackberry jam and strawberry crostata, which is a must for my breakfasts in the summer.
These biscotti with pistachios and white chocolate, which I prepared last Christmas to give to friends – and they were a hit!
Pappa al pomodoro, probably my favorite Tuscan dish.
photo credits Giulia Scarpaleggia/Jul’s Kitchen
Another food blogger I follow from the very beginning, back to when she started writing about food in 2010, is Valeria Necchio, whose blog is called – very aptly – Life Love Food and is written in English only. On the blog, you can find Italian recipes, amazing photos, and some really great food travel guides about Padova and Venice.
When I started following her, Valeria was just a young girl who was living her dream: attending the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, a small village near Alba, right in the heart of the Langhe region – a sort of heaven for food lovers. As with Giulia, what made me like her work and her blogging style was the sheer love of food she poured into each line of her blog posts.
Reading her stories and seeing her photos, you could really feel the passion she has for cooking and learning about food. Such passion is still there on her blog, after seven years and a solid career: Valeria is now working as a food writer for important magazines like the Guardian and Monocle and has recently published a cookbook called Veneto, which is all about the cuisine of her region.
My favorite recipes by Valeria are:
This crema, astaple in my Christmas lunch menu.
Bigoli in salsa, a traditional Venetian pasta dish I could eat every day.
This cake with white chocolate and clementines which I baked on repeat last winter.
photo credits Valeria Necchio/Life Love Food
I have to admit that Emiko Davies was a more recent discovery – if compared with the other two – but I immediately fell in love with her blog when I came across it. I was browsing for some Italian recipes in English to share with my students and I found her blog, which wasso full of genuine love for food and Italy that I was instantly hooked.
Actually, Emiko is not Italian (she is half-Japanese and half-Australian) but she has a passion – and respect – for Italian food that exceeds that of many Italians. Emiko moved to Florence for love: first, she fell in love with the city, then she fell in love with an Italian guy and settled down there for good. While being there, she also fell in love with Italian food and has always used her blog as a way to document it.
Her blog is full of traditional Italian recipes and has an amazing travel section, where Emiko shares accounts of her travels around Italy that make you want to pack your bags and leave, like right now. She has written two cookbooks as well: Florentine, an in-depth exploration of the food of Florence, and Acquacotta, which is all about life and food in Maremma, the southernmost part of Tuscany.
My favorite recipes by Emiko are:
This amazing chocolate cake that comes from a 1920s cookbook.
The simplest, most traditional apple cake.
Risotto with saffron and pumpkin. Perfect.
photo credits Birgitte Brondsted for Emiko Davies
I am sure you already want to start trying some of their recipes, right?
If you are looking for interesting ways to practice your Italian daily, I’d suggest you check my brand-new program called Giorno dopo giorno, a daily Italian practice.
If you sign up to Giorno dopo giorno, you will receive an email every other day for 365 days. Each email will contain a prompt, a little exercise, something to watch, read, listen or something that will gently force you to practice your Italian every day, making it part of your daily routine.
