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Eating Vegetarian in Italy

I recently heard that lard is commonly used throughout Italy in baked goods.

How can I be sure I'm getting vegetarian foods?

Thanks for any help/information.

Posted by
5527 posts

Chani, I would get on tripadvisor and ask specifically about this in the forums for the cities in which you will be travelling.

From what I know about cuisine in Italy, I suspect that the use of lard varies from region to region. I believe that lard is "strutto" in Italian.

I checked one of my Italian cookbooks (Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking) to see if she talks about lard. She does mention it when she talks about the "battutto" technique which is used to build flavor in Italian cooking. She states "at one time the invariable components of a battuto were lard , parsley, and onion ... The principal change that contemporary usage has brought is the substitution of olive oil or butter for lard"