When we talk about Southern Italian cuisine, we often refer to la cucina povera, the "poor mans' kitchen." The further you travel down the boot, the poorer the environment generally becomes. This is also reflected in the culinary traditions. However, this does not mean that the cuisine is not rich in extravagant flavors! On the contrary, a good dish from the cucina povera is truly delicious!

Many small winemakers in Italy work organically. This means that the grapes they use to make wine are grown without using chemical products such as fertilizers and pesticides. Almost all of our winemakers work completely organically, but this does not always mean that they have the BIO certificate. In Italy, and in many other countries, obtaining this certificate is a bureaucratic and expensive process. As a result, some of our winemakers choose not to obtain the certificate, but this does not make their wine any less organic.

The price of olive oil has skyrocketed in recent years, with the last year setting an absolute record. Unfortunately, our farmers are also feeling the pinch, leading to increased prices for us as well. This surge has many causes. Harvests are being affected by droughts in Southern Europe and by increasing olive diseases spread by insects. Moreover, labor costs for olive picking are rising, and it's becoming increasingly difficult to find people for this task. Together, these factors contribute to a high price of the basic product: the olive. Additionally, producers are facing inflation in packaging materials and the energy required in the production process. Price hikes are evident across the entire market spectrum, affecting both small-scale quality oil production and mass-produced supermarket varieties.

Two years ago, I decided to turn my life around. I have always worked for large corporations in the tech industry. Over the years, I have discovered that I need more freedom in making my own decisions than can be offered by these companies. But what was I going to do then? Suddenly, the world is at your feet, and that is very complicated. I decided to take a big trip through Central America with Eric, my boyfriend.

We have always been adventurous travelers and have seen much of the world, but the country that we have been drawn to time and time again is not even that far away. That country is our beloved Italy. During our 'sabbatical' - as you could call it - the idea arose to bring a small piece of beautiful Italy to the Netherlands. I have always been interested in cooking and know quite a bit about Italian cuisine, its ingredients, and techniques. And what is more Italian than indulging in a lavish meal with great, high quality ingredients? Surprisingly to us, it's still difficult to find most of these great ingredients in the north of Europe. That's when we decided to start an online platform where beautiful products are made available directly from the farm in Italy!

Pasta is probably the most famous ingredient in the Italian cuisine. But when we began our Mezzogiorno journey, it wasn't the thing we thought we could make a difference. Ooh, how little did we know... In the years leading up to Mezzogiorno we had evolved from awful Grand Italia to the much better La Molisana en De Cecco and the occasional home-made fresh experiment. But this was all before we discovered the artistry of artisanal, small scale dried pasta production in the South of Italy. There is just something about the chewiness of artisanal dried pasta that you can't get with any other pasta...

In the whirlwind of weekday dinners, few dishes provide the same comforting embrace as pasta al pomodoro. It's the easy-to-make, pantry-friendly option that doesn't require a trip to the store. At its core, pasta al pomodoro is the embodiment of Italian comfort food, offering a quick escape to the familiar and the delicious. Tomatoes, with their comforting savory essence and umami taste derived from high levels of glutamic acid, form the heart of this culinary symphony.

For me, Eric, olive oil was what inspired me to start Mezzogiorno. Once you have tasted high quality extra vierge olive oil (EVOO), you cannot go back. But after a while, you start to realize that the world of olive oil is even more fascinating; Italy alone has over 350 different types of olives, each resulting in a specific taste profile once trasformed into oil.  A lot of the olive oils most people know are blended olive oils, but the true essence of the olive can only be experienced in a monocultivar. In this blog, we'll explore and compare the taste profiles of four distinct monocultivar olive oils from Italy: Leccino and Cerasuola and Coratina from Puglia, and Ottobratica from Calabria. But first let's talk about the difference between blended and monocultivar extra virgin olive oils.