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Britain is a nation of foodie 'Italophiles' according to research from olive magazine, which found that Italian food is our favourite international cuisine with almost all of us cooking it at home. A survey of nearly 2,500 ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Magazines readers was conducted for olive magazine's June issue, which features the best Italian recipes, restaurants and travel.

Some of the key findings are:

• Over 40% of people chose Italian as their favourite foreign food, with 93% cooking Italian recipes at home. Indian food was the second favourite international cuisine, at 16%;
• Pasta is our favourite Italian dish, favoured by 26.5% of people;
• Our favourite sauce on pasta is Bolognese, followed by carbonara and then pesto;
• Lasagne is our second favourite Italian recipe with 15% of votes, ahead of pizza, at 14%;
• These were followed by risotto, ice-cream, and then Parma ham.
• In terms of pizza toppings, the simple margherita is our favourite, followed by salami and quattro formaggi.
• We also love the lingo - although the teaching of Italian is not commonplace in British schools, it is still our second-favourite language, only just pipped by French.

According to Christine Hayes, editor of olive magazine: "Culinary fads come and go, but Italian cooking is now part of our food D.N.A. It's remarkable to think that just 40 years ago few British people had heard of 'Bolognese' and now it's a favourite across the land."

June's olive magazine is on sale now, priced at £3.40


NOTES TO EDITORS
i) The findings are the results of two surveys of ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Magazines readers. One was completed in April 2010 and the other in January 2010. The April survey was conducted with 2,479 readers and the January survey was 2061 readers of ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Magazines

i) olive is the stylish, monthly magazine for food lovers with an emphasis on getting great value. It has 93,300 monthly readers according to the last Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) figures.

Toby Hicks