PERFECT PASTA
The food of Calabria, despite the abundance of fish, is primarily a diet of simple fresh pasta and homegrown vegetables cooked in fascinatingly different ways. Although pasta is important to all Italians, in Calabria it is almost treated with reverence. Each city or town has its own specialities, from chewy fusilli, to various types of lasagne.
Calabrians seem to know by instinct, the best sauce to pair with each pasta to create the most delicious dishes. Piero caused me to sample many varieties of homemade pasta, such as macaroni alla pastora (with ricotta cheese) and other sauces, fusilli (curly pasta), vermicelli in soup and tortellini in brodo. His own favourite was pollo alla cacciatore (‘hunter’s chicken’), to say nothing of uove alla purgatorio (‘eggs from purgatory’). You can imagine how I gradually became drawn into a cuisine far removed from my own by this expert young cook, backed up by total single-minded enthusiasm for his subject. With youthful exuberance I once suggested fish and chips to him and he returned to Italy with a craving even for that. It fitted the Calabrian palette perfectly – good, simple but tasty basic fare. As it happened, I visited Piero and his family on several occasions in the years that followed. His family welcomed me with incredible warmth and I felt part of that corner of Italy. We would visit Piero’s mum, who made all sorts of typical Calabrian dishes for anyone lucky enough to visit. Like highland hospitality in my own country, Calabrians regard it as a sacred duty to welcome guests and I was ushered into many a happy gathering under the gaze of Padre Pio, whose caring picture adorned the rooms. I learned that Piero also had another passion: he was an avid stamp collector and his passionate nature had an outlet here too. Lovingly organized albums of stamps surrounded him in his room. As I met the local folk I discovered the famously proud Calabrian dialect. Its weird and resonant words made me swim as I struggled to understand, equipped only with average Italian, a language I had come to love. Calabrian is an Italian dialect and a descendant of Vulgar Latin, but it has plenty of Greek influence too from the Magna Graecia period. I remember being sent home on one occasion with a bag of cuddaraci (Easter buns), one of many words of Greek origin.
I was favoured this year by being able to return to see my old friend after a gap of 25 years. In that time, with family and professional matters intervening for both of us, I had never forgotten the pull of this land. Piero welcomed me back to a country that I now think of as my second home. It was the little things that jumped out at me – zuppa Inglese ice-cream, spaghetti alla vongole, seeing the wonderful way Calabrians use their hands when they speak, young Italians going to school, walks along the beach and meeting folk I had not seen for years. If this evocation persuades you to consider a visit, you should know that I have not even mentioned the archaeological areas of Sibari and Locri Epizefiri, the towns of Gerace and Stilo, to say nothing of the forests of Sila, dubbed the Yellowstone of Calabria. All the more reason to investigate further. Unusual destination it may be but, like a real life pearl,Calabria hides its beauty.
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