Italian home cooking

I’m not a foodie, but I was with someone who knows quality nosh when she tastes it, and she assures me that the dinner we had with Marina and her husband – pasta and pork washed down by that local Ciro white wine and a delicious Limoncello liqueur – was excellent. Guests who take food far more seriously than I do might be interested in Marina’s Italian cookery courses.

“I usually ask my guests if they want to tackle a complete Italian menu, or if they’re interested in particular dishes – and the most frequent request is about how to make fresh pasta,” she says.

“Most people ask about tagliatelle and ravioli, but I like to introduce them to a typical southern I talian hand-made pasta such as strangugghijapreviti, which is what we call pasta for the poor because it’s made without eggs, just flour and water. It means, literally ‘strangle priests’ – a reference to people becoming so tired of priests that in the privacy of their homes they’d dream of strangling them.

“I also like to teach them to make Scaponata, another southern dish made with aubergines.”

The Blue Moon beach restaurant

What to eat and drink

The upside of slow industrial development – and a reluctance to use chemical fertilisers – is that locally-produced food reaches the shops and restaurants as succulent and fresh as nature intended. Calabria’s beef, lamb, fruit and vegetables are said to be among the best in Italy. Calabria’s premier wines are Ciro Bianco and Ciro Rosso.

What to see

On the west coast, two must-see towns for days out are Pizzo and Tropea. With a 15th century castle and winding streets, Pizzo is a fishing port and a summer resort famous for its tartufo ice cream – ice cream balls wrapped in chocolate – and its miles and miles of vast unspoiled beaches, all but deserted in any month but August.

“Welcome to paradise,” said the owner of the Blue Moon beach restaurant and bar in Pizzo when we staggered in at the end of a day’s swimming and sunbathing. “There’s no such place, but this is close,” I said as we watched the setting sun laying a path of gold from the shore to the horizon.

Not far north of Pizzo is the Maida plain, where the British turfed the French out of Calabria in 1806 at the battle which gave its name to Maida Vale in North London.

Further south, Tropea is an attractive small cliff-top town with commanding views of the sea and two miles of broad sandy beaches, a restored Norman cathedral and a fascinating mix of handsome mediaeval and baroque villas. Tropea’s recent claim to fame is that, according to a Calabrian biochemist, its red onions have the same effect as Viagra – the common active ingredient being nitric acid. Sadly, I didn’t learn about this until after I’d left.

Small inland towns worth visiting for glimpses of Italian country life miles off the tourist beat are Nicola da Crissa and, on a forested plateau high in the hills, Serra San Bruno, founded in the 11th century by Saint Bruno – founder of the Carthusian Order – and now a relatively prosperous centre of the region’s woodworking industry. Baroque churches, tiny cafés and small stone and wood houses with elegant balconies line the main street.