An iPhone app with authentic Italian dishes for foodies

Does your mouth begin to water when you hear the words manicotti and homemade pasta? Have you always wanted to cook like an authentic Italian?

A new app for the iPhone unlocks some of the mystery behind Italy’s traditional dishes and organizes the recipes by regions including places such as Sicilia, Calabria and Abruzzo. As is true with most countries, flavours and tastes vary from region to region and so do sauces, desserts and side dishes.

Italians Cook it Better, offers brief historical information about each one of the twenty regions available. The history of the region, pertaining to food, is full of factoids like the most popular spices, favourite sauces as well as explanations of cooking methods in that area.
To get cooking, after selecting a region, foodies can build an entire set of courses from appetizers to desserts. With this app, you’re not mix matching different dishes across Italy, each recipe follows the same origin. This might not be of great importance to everyone, but if you’re serious about food, you have the option to recreate an authentic seven course meal from a handful of various locations.

From saffron flavoured mussels to jam filled boccnotti, the app is sure to inspire, and each recipe has an option to append notes or share the recipe via email. Unfortunately there’s no option to share with your social networks.  Full size images of the recipes (foodie porn) are available, although we’d like to see more than one image per meal, perhaps a gallery representing the step by step process.

There’s a plethora of apps out there that offer free Italian recipes but Italians Cook it Better stands out for its focus on authenticity. It’s available for $3.99 within the app store.