Wheat is the staple Italian grain, used for pasta and bread. Bread is eaten as, well, bread, and is used as a primary ingredient in sauces and soups. Italian breads, like focaccia and grissini, are made from basic yeasted dough. Long, slow proofing insures lightness. Baking is normally done in brick ovens. However, home cooks who don't have brick ovens can easily simulate brick oven results in a conventional oven, without the wood smoke, of course. Though we tend to think of bread as peasant food, it developed among the rich in Italy -- wheat being a luxury item and baking requiring expenditures for fuel and ovens. Polenta, cornmeal gruel descended from the Etruscan, was the cheap, filling staple of the poor.

Pasta comes in countless forms and with innumerable fillings. Some are egg-based, particularly in the north, while others are made from semolina and water alone. Gnocchi (a word which means something like "knuckle head") are pasta dumplings, made either with potatoes or with semolina cooked in milk instead of water.

Rice is another popular grain, famously used in northern Italian risottos, for which rice that has been sautéed in butter is cooked by the gradual addition of hot stock.