2008 NEW YEAR’S FESTIVITIES: 2.8 BILLION EUROS WORTH OF SPUMANTE, COTECHINO, ETC, “DISAPPEAR”

Italians rang in 2008 with 2.6 billion euros worth of food and drink (actually a 3.5% decline from 2007), investing more in traditional cotechino and zampone and less in luxury foods like salmon, oysters and caviar. There was also a net victory for Italian spumante over champagne, which was used for toasts to the new year 98% of the time at Italian celebrations.

These were the results recently reported by Coldiretti, who also affirmed that, “the dinner to celebrate the longest night of the year had 8 out of 10 Italians making at the homes of friends and relatives”.

It also appears that the most popular item on dinner tables this year was spumante, of which 80 million bottles in homes, at restaurants, and at public events was consumed. This is an impressively superior amount of Italian production consumed over the French equivalent, champagne.

There has also been a significant return to the traditional cotechino and zampone with a record consumption of 8 million kilos. Together with the “lucky” lentils, specialty items that are protected by the European Union, like IGP Cotechino and Zampone from Modena, were also eaten.

Along with national favorites there were also many local specialties eaten at Italian New Year’s celebrations. If in Emilia Romagna dinners were served with tortellini, in Lombardy risotto was the most popular first course, while in Piedmont agnolotti were top choice, spaghetti the most popular throughout the south, and in Sardinia it was the classic gnocchetti.

And, regardless of the cost hikes that were reported by Codacons for the two most popular holiday desserts pandoro (+12%) and panettone (+9%), 100 million of them were still devoured at the end of Italian festivities.