"The notion of cucicna povera, or poor cooking, carries through Southern Italian cooking today." A few years ago, my fiancé and I went on a trip to Italy. It was no mere European vacation—we spent a year working two jobs to save enough to live in Italy for as long as possible. Finally, when we reached our desired sum, we gave our landlord notice, got rid of basically every single thing we owned, and packed our remaining belongings into two oversize backpacks that were too heavy for us to even carry. Upon arriving at Fiumicino Airport in Rome, we quickly realized that our Italian phrasebook—and the three Italian language classes that I had taken—weren't going to do us any good.... More