Region: Umbria

Landlocked and green, Umbria is the only Italian region that touches neither the sea nor a foreign border. What it has instead is water, woodland and hill country: the Tiber valley, Lake Trasimeno, the slopes around Città della Pieve where the Etruscans first planted. It is farmed at a smaller scale than its famous neighbour Tuscany, and that scale is exactly the point. Farms here are family sized, often worked by hand, and the produce rarely travels far before it is cooked or jarred.

The region is best known for black truffle from the Valnerina, lentils from Castelluccio, olive oil from the Trevi and Spoleto hills, and heritage alliums such as the aglione of the neighbouring Valdichiana. Umbrian cooking is plain in the best sense: few ingredients, wood fire, long cooking, and a strong preference for what grew this week over what could be shipped in.