What do Italians eat in a day?
Italians start light with a cornetto and a cappuccino, eat pasta or a main course at lunch around 13:00, and sit down to dinner after 20:00, often after an aperitivo.
Typical dishes and their calories
Breakfast
Colazione is small and sweet. Many Italians stop at a bar between 7:00 and 10:00 for a cappuccino and a cornetto, about 320 kcal together, eaten standing at the counter. At home it is often biscuits or rusks with jam, dipped in caffè latte. Eggs and bacon are not part of it.
Lunch
Pranzo runs from about 12:30 to 14:30. On a workday it can be a panino or one plate of pasta, around 500 to 700 kcal. On Sundays lunch is the long family meal, with a primo of pasta or risotto followed by a secondo of meat or fish.
Dinner
Cena starts around 20:00, later in the south. A full dinner follows a fixed order: antipasto, a primo such as pasta, risotto or soup, a secondo of meat or fish with a contorno of vegetables, then fruit or dessert. On weekdays many families keep it to one or two of these.
Starters
Antipasti open a bigger meal: sliced prosciutto and salami, cheese, marinated vegetables and bruschetta with tomato. In the evening the aperitivo does the same job, a drink from about 18:00 with olives, crisps or small bites, and in Milan often a whole buffet.
Desserts
Tiramisu, about 340 kcal a portion, is the dessert most visitors know. Sicily has cannoli and cassata, Naples has sfogliatella and babà, and on a warm evening a cone of gelato is the usual walk home. Many people end the meal with an espresso or a small digestivo.
Drinks
Coffee means espresso, ordered as un caffè and drunk at the counter in a minute. Wine comes with meals, often a glass or two. The Aperol Spritz, about 140 kcal, is the classic aperitivo drink, together with prosecco and the Negroni.
Street food
Naples has pizza a portafoglio, a pizza folded in four and eaten while walking. Sicily has arancini, fried rice balls of about 350 kcal each. Rome has supplì and pizza al taglio sold by weight, Florence has the lampredotto sandwich and Romagna has the piadina.
Normal there, odd elsewhere
Milky coffee is a morning drink: a cappuccino after 11:00 or with a meal marks you as a visitor, because many Italians find hot milk on a full stomach too heavy. Pasta is a course rather than the whole meal, and chicken on pasta or ketchup on pizza looks strange to most Italians.