Italian food is among the most popular cuisines in the world, filled with regional specialties and classics that cross borders, like pizza, pasta, and gelato. Whether your favorite night out involves an Italian restaurant or you love poring over cookbooks to recreate traditional dishes, you've likely picked up a few words from the Romance language along the way.

You could turn your linguistic knowledge into a fun party trick or you might choose to branch out and expand your grasp of Italian cooking terms. After all, there are several words that can help you speed through recipes and menus without stopping to try to understand the Italian descriptors. Oftentimes, they refer to the way an ingredient is cooked, served, or garnished, so learning several important terms can eliminate some of the mystery.