November 21 marks World Italian Panino Day 2021. For the occasion, the hashtag #PaninoItalianoDay has been created in order to post one's own creations and experiences to share them on social networks. Many star chefs in recent years have decided to experiment with gourmet variations of the classic sandwich. For example, Cristina Bowerman, 1 Michelin star for Glass Hostaria, has created a line of contemporary burgers.

Pino Cuttaia, 2 Michelin stars, invented the tuna genovese tramezzini, while Massimo Bottura, 3 Michelin stars for Osteria Francescana, proposes the Emilia Burger with Chianina meatball and cotechino, 24 months Parmigiano Reggiano, green parsley sauce and mayonnaise with balsamic vinegar glaze.

We then move on to the gourmet panini of Mauro Uliassi, 3 Michelin stars: he offers the Porchetta Panino with porchetta, while René Redzepi of Noma boasts a Cheese Burger with organic beef and veg burger made with fermented quinoa tempeh.

Panino is an icon of the Italian enogastronomical heritage, so much that even the Academy of Italian Panino does its best to protect it. But where does the panino originate from? The Italian one was officially born at the beginning of the 1900's, when Alberto Cougnet distinguished sandwiches from panini, by creating a recipe book in Florentine language. At that time, the sandwich was considered a more noble dish, destined for the buffets of the rich and for picnics, whereas the panino had a more popular connotation, it was the food of the workers.

In reality already in ancient Rome there was the habit of eating bread with something else in between. Particularly loved were panini with must and ham cooked in the water of dried figs, eaten especially in the streets by working people (a sort of ancestor of today's street food).

Even Leonardo Da Vinci invented an alternative panino, but he did not give it a name: he just said he had the idea to take a slice of bread and to put it between two pieces of meat.