| Italian cuisine has never been so popular as it is right | | | | in Italy and it seems both a way of spending time |
| now, with 'cooking class holidays' and 'gastronomical | | | | without 'the wife', keeping her happy and ensuring |
| tours' in Italy having become extremely popular. | | | | that they are fed well with fresh vegetables and |
| Olive-oil sales are rocketing while Italian/Mediterranean | | | | herbs from the orto (vegetable garden). The |
| cooking books are being sold, almost before they hit | | | | freedom to consume healthy quantities of wine while |
| the shelves and Italian farmers can hardly keep up | | | | tending their vegetable gardens and discuss 'male |
| with the worlds demand for 'food made in Italy'. | | | | business' in peace could also be an incentive- but |
| The world appears to love Italian food, from pizza to | | | | that's another story! |
| pasta, from wine to coffee and from fruit to | | | | In any case, tending the vegetable garden and herb |
| vegetables it all just seems to taste better from | | | | garden is an important part of Mediterranean culture. |
| Italy! | | | | The right to have a piece of land to themselves, |
| Italians have had a very close relationship with | | | | without having to donate 50% to the aristocracy is |
| enjoying fine food throughout history and one look | | | | indeed a new right and the Italians have taken full |
| at their ancestry explains why. Italian cuisine has been | | | | advantage of it. |
| influenced by the Greeks, Arabs, North Africans and | | | | You do not need to live in a huge villa to create a |
| all the other cultures overthrown by the immense | | | | formal vegetable garden, as a formal. Italian |
| Roman Empire. | | | | vegetable garden can be just 10 yards across and |
| Most importantly, the famine endured by most | | | | can cost far far less than the standard method of |
| Italians during World War II shaped their cuisine for | | | | planting expensive roses. Italian vegetable and |
| ever, as simple, cheap foods like; pasta, pizza and | | | | Mediterranean herb plants/seeds cost cents as |
| most of the other classic Italian dishes were borne | | | | opposed to the tens of Euros needed to plant costly |
| from hardship alone during this time. | | | | shrubs etc. It has to be said that, aside from being |
| The hardship of war meant that Italians began | | | | easy to install, inexpensive and spectacularly |
| growing their own Mediterranean herbs and | | | | beautiful... Italian vegetables and Mediterranean herbs |
| vegetables in their own back gardens and both do | | | | are actually... EDIBLE!!! |
| particularly well in the Mediterranean region. | | | | Contemporary garden designers here in Italy are |
| Vegetables like the artichoke have long been prized | | | | looking towards history to find solutions to modern |
| by Arab cultures and thus it also features in Italian | | | | problems and address modern requirements! We are |
| cuisine. The arrival of the solanums (tomatoes, | | | | also tearing our hair out trying to convince the world |
| egg-plant, peppers etc) took their cuisine into another | | | | that it's time to change...! |
| dimension and subsequently had an effect on the | | | | I truly believe that the future of gardening lies in the |
| way that the rest of the world perceives food. | | | | past, as there really is ... Nothing More Modern Than |
| The cultivation of vegetables and Mediterranean | | | | The Past...!! |
| herbs has always been a popular hobby for the men | | | | |