Italian cuisine is a Mediterranean cuisine consisting of the ingredients, recipes, and cooking techniques developed across the Italian Peninsula since antiquity, and later spread around the world together with waves of Italian diaspora.
Significant changes occurred with the colonization of the Americas and the introduction of potatoes, tomatoes, capsicums, maize and sugar beet – the latter introduced in quantity in the 18th century. Italian cuisine is known for its regional diversity, especially between the north and the south of Italy. It offers an abundance of taste, and is one of the most popular and copied in the world. It influenced several cuisines around the world, chiefly that of the United States.
