For April and part of May I will be travelling, so newsletters will be shorter and more whimsical than usual. I will concentrate on what I see and what I eat.
Calabria
The province of Calabria takes up the toe, instep and ankle of the boot of Italy. It is said to be the poorest district in Italy; we are in Tropea, on the instep, as beautiful a place as you can find along the long Italian coast.
Here I am on the beach, with the houses perched on the cliff and the monastery just visible on the right. It is desreted in late March; jammed with bathers from May on.
Looking up the cliff to the houses hanging on the edge of the old town.
The palazzo below was an abandoned wreck on our last three visits here. The story is the building was left to the offspring of a local aristocrat whose children and grandchildren couldn’t agree on what to do with it. Now Tropea is making a comeback— too many Airbnb apartments say locals— and the palazzo is being restored is being restored by an architect who raised money to do so.
Tropea is a old town, with narrow streets and stones laid for carts.
It was once accessible only by sea. It was rich but the unification of Italy in the 19th century didn’t do it any favours. The name Garibaldi, the man from the north who led the unification of Italy, by force in places, is not popular with many Calabrese, even though he has a minor side street named in his honour. A Calabrian in Toronto pointed me to a book on the subject: Terroni by Pino Aprile. The word Terroni is said to be a slur used by northern Italians to describe those from the south.
Just south of Tropea, halfway to Capo Vaticano, is the Manitta Restauant.
It was founded by Antonio Rombolá, who first went to America to make his fortune.
This is Antonio on the Italian ocean liner Conte Blancamano; the photo below that shows him working as a chef in New Jersey before coming home to Calabria.
This is the restauant on an evening in late March. That’s my friend Roberto Mesiano waving around the corner. He is the ultimate Italian foodie.
Roberto and his partner Mariela do the ordering for us.
In the kitchen, three men at work: from the left, Daniele Pugliese, Antonio Rombolá, grandson of the founder, and Fati Suleyman. In spite of what you sometimes read, it strikes me that the Italians seem to be welcoming the immigrants from Africa.
The antipasti overflows. At this stage it is haf finished.
Followed, of course, by risotto, tasting every bit as wonderful as it looks.
While Italians love their food, they are for the most part a slender lot. This chart from a recent Economist shows that the Mediterranean diet leaves people slimmer.
On the train platform in Catania on our way here, police were asking people for their ID. The papers say there is increased vigilance following the attack in Moscow.
There were police vehicles in Tropea, but my friend Roberto jokes that here there is nothing to worry about. “ISIS knows the mafia is here. We are protected.”
On Good Friday the town shows its Catholic roots. From the Jesuit Church— the Jesuits first came to ztropea in 1594— the procession started with the body of Christ carried by the faithful. The streets were jammed. But one modern annoyance: a drone circled overhead, its almost downing out the priest’s opening remarks.
The procession lasted at least two hours. Here the Carabinieri lead the way.
On Easter Sunday the temperature in a garden in the hills in Calabria was 25 degrees.