Pages of Italy — Episode 3: Italian Cuisine — A Story of Regions

Buongiorno! Episode 3 of my Pages of Italy is now live! Pull up a chair. Pour something Italian. Turn the page. Pages of Italy is a reading podcast for anyone who loves Italy — or who has always wanted to. Each episode is a slow, warm journey through Italian history, cuisine, architecture, and culture, hosted by Italian landscape watercolour painter, former columnist, and writer-illustrator Denise Wong. In this third episode, we sit down at the Italian table and discover there is no such thing as "Italian food" — only Venetian, Neapolitan, Sicilian, Tuscan, a thousand regional kitchens sharing a language but not a plate. We trace the surprising Arab roots of dried pasta and Sicilian pastry, the late and reluctant arrival of the tomato, and journey from the butter and risotto of the north to the olive oil and dried pasta of the south — before asking what the slow, unhurried ritual of the Italian meal reveals about how Italy moves through time itself.

Pages of Italy Podcast: Episode 1 Welcome to Italy, Episode 2 What Italy Gave the World — And Who the Italians Are

 Buongiorno! Somewhere in May 2026 I began doing voice recordings for my Pages of Italy Podcast. It is a fascinating project where I get to dwell deep into such an amazing country — Italy — studying its history, culture, food, landscape, and people. On 21st May I published my first episode: Welcome to Italy. In this episode, we open the book on the country itself — a wide, unhurried portrait of Italy, from the canal-threaded streets of Venice and the cypress hills of Tuscany to the Italian lakes, the volcanic shores of Sicily, and the grandeur of eternal Rome.

 

And today the 2nd Episode is live! Episode 2: What Italy Gave the World — And Who the Italians Are. In this second episode, we ask what Italy truly gave the world — from the espresso to the piano, the bank to the university — and meet the Italians themselves: fiercely regional, warmly human, and unlike any other people on earth.