This episode is about a specialty from Colonnata, a little village above Carrara, where marble is quarried. It's pork lard, which may not sound very appetizing but is beloved by Italians all over the peninsula. A little goes a long way, but savored with typical unsalted Tuscan bread, it is pretty special. And marble plays an important part.

Truffle hunting is a peculiar activity, one that requires the collaboration of a dog. And you never want to let on how many truffles you find, even if you are friends with other truffle hunters.

How are the harvested truffles divided up? And besides being sold whole, how are they further processed? Paolo and Stefania tell us the story.

Italy is known for its pasta. The Zampino family was able to give new life to an old flour mill from the sixteen hundreds and turn it into a productive plant where they produce pasta keeping to traditional methods.

To make pasta, only 2 ingredients are strictly necessary: semola (durum wheat flour) and water. But atmospheric conditions make all the difference.

Donato Brenca has been making cheese for about 20 years, and although he strives to make better and better cheese, he sticks to the same method he has always employed.

One reason mozzarella di bufala (buffalo mozzarella) is so delicious is because the animals are treated with utmost respect. They are milked when they are physiologically ready!

Here we go with a new series with Anna and Marika. Each video will feature an oral quiz — just like in actual Italian schools — about a region of Italy. A separate cooking video will feature a recipe from that region. We start in the "heel of the boot": Puglia.

Anna gets grilled on Sicily by Marika. Oral quizzes are very frequently used in Italian schools. Grading is done on a scale from 1-10 for primary and secondary schools, and from 1-30 at the university level.

It's time to talk about Calabria, a southern region with both sea and mountains. Let's hope Anna did some studying.

Let's see if Anna has studied one of the northernmost regions of Italy. It's a border region and as such, has some peculiarities.

Because Anna knows the subject backwards and forwards, she volunteers to take the teacher's quiz on Liguria, but that doesn't help much with her grade.

Agata and Catena have stopped at the Catania outdoor market to do some food shopping. Catena gets to taste some of the delicious local specialties.

Catena and Agata relax in the garden of Agata's baglio [Sicilian architectural form with buildings arranged around a courtyard]. They're getting ready to cook typical Sicilian dishes that Catena will include in a cookbook she's writing.

Terre d'acqua means water-lands. We are talking about the once marshy area which has now become the fertile Po valley. Gualtiero Marchesi is considered to be the founder of the new Italian cuisine, and is perhaps the best known Italian chef in the world. He begins telling us his story.