Sfogliatella: the delicious taste of Campania region

When you stay in Salerno, you can’t miss the Sfogliatella, the delicious shell-shaped filled Italian pastry native to Campania.

The word sfogliatella means "small, thin leaf/layer", as the pastry's texture resembles stacked leaves.

The Sfogliatella was created in the monastery of Santa Rosa in Conca dei Marini in the province of Salerno, Italy, in the 17th century. Pasquale Pintauro, a pastry chef from Naples, acquired the original recipe and began selling the pastries in his shop in 1818.

          

      Sfogliatella Santa Rosa

Main dough ingredients are salt, shortening and flour, while fillings include orange-flavored ricotta, almond paste and candied peel of citron.

In Neapolitan cuisine there are two kinds of the pastry: "sfogliatella riccia" ("curly"), the traditional version, and "sfogliatella frolla," a less labor-intensive pastry that uses a shortcrust dough and does not form the sfogliatella's characteristic layers.

Riccia or frolla? Which one would you prefer?

We are waiting for you at Accademia Italiana in Salerno to find it out!

WHY STUDENTS LEARN ITALIAN

You may be surprised to find out that Italian is the fourth most studied language in the world, but indeed it is. Ahead of Chinese, Japanese and German, Italian confirmed to be one of the most loved languages by foreigners. How to explain this success?  We have interviewed some of our students, of different ages and nationalities, and  here it is a list of the main reasons why they study Italian:

1.      For cultural reasons: A lot of  people explained that Italian is not important for their work but they study it for traveling and visiting the “Bel Paese”. They are fully in love with our culture, they have studied the Italian artists and writers  ( Leonardo, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Dante, etc) at school and they think it’s a privilege to speak such a language which gave the birth to their favourite artists.

  

2.      Gastronomy: This is of course part of cultural reasons but it is such an important aspect in Italian

language market that it deserves its own category.  Italian food is famous all over the world: pasta, pizza, mozzarella, wine, lemoncello are only some of the food products  foreigners are in love with. The enquiries for  Italian cooking courses have been increasing recently  as well as all the special programs which combine language + cooking. Our “Language Food and Wine” Program,  for example, with wine tastings and practical cooking lessons, it is one of our more popular program.

3.  Personal reasons: A lot of our students study Italian because they want to travel and visit the            Country. Some of them have Italian origins and they want to know more about their family or            just visit some relatives. Last but not least, some people are in love with an Italian woman/                   man.

4.   Work:  People who work with or for Italian companies need to study Italian. This also

explains an increasing demand for Courses for Professionals where students ask for tailor           made lessons and where Italian for specific purposes is mainly taught.