The New Year is almost upon us and in Italy people are starting to think about preparing their dinners for the 31 December. Many Italians will go out to dinner on that night, and restaurants up and down the country provide special meals, often quite costly, to celebrate with music and dancing. Whether people go out or stay at home, there is one thing which is usually on the menu: cotechino e lenticchie (a kind of pork sausage served with lentils).
Prosecco Valdobbiadene
Prosecco is perhaps the most famous Italian wine outside Italy today, with the possible exception of Chianti. It seems that people can’t get enough of it. Before the 1990s, it was relatively unknown but, in the last five years, sales have outstripped those of Champagne, making it the world’s most popular sparkling wine.
Now that we’ve got the feasts of All Saints, San Martin, and the Festa della Salute out of the way, it’s safe to talk about Christmas. For Italians, there’s one more holiday before, December 8, the Immacolata—more about that next month—but Christmas is definitely coming. The shops are already full of panettone and other Christmas sweetmeats. Churches are in the middle of erecting their presepi (nativity scenes) which will be revealed in a couple of weeks time on the First Sunday of Advent.