Eat Your Words - Cooking and Language Courses in Italy

Lingua Piu is an educational organisation based in Citta di Castello, Umbria, central Italy whose aim is to spreading the Italian cultural, gastronomic and artistic splendour using its rich landscape and romance of the Italian language to add flavour. The combinations of Umbrian cuisine, its wine and particularly distinctive ingredients, recipes and tastes with the beauty of learning Italian.

The meals of the area have distinctive recipes and menus are heavily influenced by the natural resources of the Umbrian landscape. Italian cooking has the flavour of its origins and Umbrian recipes are abundant with the taste of its dark earth, verdant hills and musky forests. Mother natures cooking at its best.

Umbria, the green heart of the Italian peninsular is a wild mountainous province, landlocked and renowned for its luscious vegetation, wooded hillsides and wide valleys. Umbria is a hardy countryside, that plays home to the pecorino sheep and provides habits for wild boar and porcupine. The mysterious hidden places of the Apennine Mountains, are home to tales of wolves and eagles, while the lower slopes, around Cascia are fragrant with fields of saffron.

The food of Umbria is like the landscape, rich and earthy, Umbrian’s make wholesome, hearty meals that down the centuries have satisfied the bellies of many a saint and sinner. Throughout Italian, every region is renowned for specific ingredients and Umbria excels in the fruits of the forest, the area is one of the largest producers of black truffles, porcine and saffron, while Norcia is legendary for its wild boar sausages.

Umbria is also famous for its olive oil and wine production, the province is littered with dappled olive groves, their spindly branches covering many hillsides, while other neighbourhoods have a profusion of vineyards, laid out in neat rows and lovingly tended. The sweet Orvieto white wine popular with princes and popes over the years, while Umbrian olive oil is prized by chefs with world over.

The world over, places have a signature cheese and Umbria is no different, Pecorino, sheeps milk cheese is famously produced throughout the province. A rich, hard cheese, with a strong, pungent flavour that varies between sweet to quite spicy with age. After the main course what better than cakes, puddings or sweets, the delicacies of the area include fichi girotti from Amelia or Perugia’s famous Baci chocolates.

A holiday with Lingua Piu will give you the experience of a lifetime, the chance to go truffle hunting, look for porcini mushrooms in the forests, make your own pasta or visit a local cheese factory. The area is also home to many “sagra” food festivals, where the local produce from the humble chestnut to revered Assisi onion are all enthusiastically celebrated, and have the chance to learn some real home cooking, slow cooking, the Italian way.

All of this activity is accompanied with Italian language lessons to complement the day, preparing your for your trip to the market or for rolling out your own pasta. The lessons are planned for all levels of understanding and give all who attend an added appreciation of the day. The whole holiday is based on having fun, learning but most of all enjoying the simple pleasures of life, good food, a bottle of wine and friendly conversations.