The 10 Italian delicacies you might want to avoid

Say wine, snacks or haute cuisine and the gourmands at online food magazine FavorFlav know where to drink, how to eat it and what to cook. This time our cheffies serve you: the 10 Italian delicacies you might want to avoid.

No pizza Margherita or spaghetti alla bolognese for a while? Then go for rane fritte, rigatoni con la pagliata or casu marzu. Or not.

Casu Marzu
Literally: rotten cheese. And that is not meant figuratively. This Sardinian cheese is aged so long that it far exceeds the stage of overripe. Surprise, surprise – little creatures are attracted to it. Long story short: the cheese is full of maggots, which, fun fact, can jump very high. The cheese was banned for a while, but not anymore, so you can find it everywhere again. Quite trendy, rotten food.

Gnummareddi
This ‘traditional dish’ (you know what that means) comes from Apulia, in the heel of the boot. Offal (in the broadest sense of the word) from lambs of sheep and goats is cut into pieces, mixed, and seasoned with what the region has to offer. The mixture is then stuffed into a casing and wrapped with strips of casing. Delicious on the barbecue!

Maccheroni con la Trippa
Delicious, macaroni. But with what? With tripe. And white wine. And Parmesan cheese. And more Parmesan cheese: the applesauce of Italy.

Cima alla Genovese
Once sliced, the stuffed veal breast looks beautiful. It is a true work of art on the table, served cold as an appetizer or on a sandwich. The filling makes it so beautiful; the bright orange carrots and fresh green peas stand out. Additionally, it is filled with brains.

Polpo alla Luciana
The fishermen of Santa Lucia, in Naples on the coast, knew how to catch the best octopuses in terracotta amphorae and made this tasty dish with them. And it is still a true classic. The octopuses are cooked with tomatoes, capers, and black olives. Mamma mia! Just those suckers...

Rigatoni con la pagliata
Or ‘pajata’, as they say in Rome. It is the thin intestine of a suckling calf. The little creature has never had anything other than milk, and the contents of the intestine (milk, that is) are not washed away but rather consumed. Strange guys, those Romans.

Melanzane al cioccolato
In the category ‘a bit strange, but tasty’: eggplants with chocolate. A dessert, then. Italians also find it a bit strange, but tasty.

Cibreo
Reportedly, this was the favorite dish of Catherine de’ Medici, and she almost ate herself to death with it. Through her marriage, she moved to France, but not without taking her Florentine cooks with her. She undeniably left her mark on French cuisine, but this did not go down well with them. It is a sauce full of chicken livers and hearts, rooster combs and wattles, and the unfertilized eggs from a freshly slaughtered chicken.

Rane fritte
Everything is delicious when you fry it, so we have the utmost confidence in the taste of fried frogs in batter.

Zampone
Another dish that is essentially delicious, but due to its presentation poses a barrier for Dutch eyes, which are rarely confronted with the fact that meat comes from a dead animal. Zampone is a pig's trotter that has been partially deboned. Only the skin remains intact. Then the hollow trotter is filled with a mixture of pork, skin, and herbs. The stuffed trotter is cooked and sliced. It is a kind of oil ball; Italians typically eat it around New Year's.