Christmas dinner fruits, chocolate, raisins, and/or pine nuts, known as panettone, followed by "torrone" (enriched with cherries, chocolate, sweets and more), nougat and nuts. In Southern Italy instead of one cake they serve many kinds of marzipan, biscuits, zeppole, cannoli, candied fruits, and fresh fruits. In the last few decades, panettone has become popular as a Christmas sweet all over Italy. Pandoro is also a very popular cake at Christmas and New Year, accompanied by a good Champagne. One typical Dutch tradition is that of 'gourmet,' an evening-long event where small groups of people sit together around a gourmet-set and use their
Name of Italy historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the Lombard invasions, "Italia" was retained as the name for their kingdom, and for its successor kingdom within the Holy Roman Empire, which nominally lasted until 1806, although it had "de facto" disintegrated due to factional politics pitting the empire against the ascendant city republics in the 13th century. Name of Italy The name of Italy is at least 3000 years old and has a history that goes