Citizens of the World: A Stoic Podcast for Curious Travelers - Southern Italy: Food You Must Try in Campania, Puglia, Basilicata, Calabria, Molise

Episode Date: August 16, 2019

Author Katie Parla not only knows her Italian food, she knows her Italian history. Her deep culinary knowledge takes cookbook writing to the next level, with stories beautifully woven between recipes and lush photos. (show notes at postcardacademy.co )   In a previous episode of the Postcard Academy podcast, I interviewed  Katie, an American expat living in Rome, about the rich history of Roman cuisine. She recently came back on the podcast to discuss her new cookbook, Food of the Italian South.   If you’re a regular listener of the Postcard Academy, it would mean the world to me if you could take a moment to rate and/or review the show in Apple Podcasts. This helps other potential listeners know if the show is worth listening to :)   I’m your host, Sarah Mikutel. Did you know I host another show called Podcasting Step by Step? Check it out if you’ve been wanting to start a podcast. Every week, I break down ‘how to podcast’ with a little loving motivation to give you the skills and confidence you need to finally launch that show of your dreams.   Ready to travel? Get your free guide to cheap airfare.   Thank you so much for listening to this show. I know you’re busy and have many listening options, so it means a lot to me that you’re here. You are the best.   This podcast is brought to you by Audible. Not a member yet? Postcard Academy listeners can get a FREE audiobook and a 30-day free trial if you sign up via audibletrial.com/postcard   This podcast is also brought to you by World Nomads. Need simple and flexible travel insurance? Get a cost estimate from World Nomads using their handy calculator at postcardacademy.co/insurance Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free Conversation Cheat Sheet with simple formulas you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you’re in a meeting or just talking with friends.Download it at sarahmikutel.com/blanknomore and start feeling more confident in your conversations today.

Welcome to the Postcard Academy. I'm your host, Sarah Mikital, and today we are eating our way through the five regions of southern Italy. My guest is Katie Parla, author of the new cookbook Food of the Italian South. You have heard Katie before on the Rome episode of this podcast, and I really love talking to her because not only does she know her Italian food, she also knows her history, and she has this beautiful way of weaving fascinating facts. and stories in between the recipes in her cookbooks and also in the articles that she writes for The New York Times and other publications. You are going to learn so much today. But first, this episode is brought to you by podcasting step by step. Have you been thinking about starting a podcast for a while, but you don't really know where to start? Subscribe to podcasting step by step for free, wherever you listen to a podcast. And I will help you create a great show step by step. Now into my conversation with Katie. Welcome, Katie. Thank you so much for joining me today. Thanks for having me. I love your cookbooks because they're part history,

part cooking, part photography, all rolled into one. And it's really clear by reading Food of the Italian South that this region is very special to you. So what is it about? Italy's south that you love so much? You know, I was really attracted to Italy, not maybe for the picture perfect beauty of central Rome, which is my home, but for the idiosyncrasies of the country. And I think when you visit the south, which is a huge swath of land, basically drive an hour south of Rome, head to the toe, the heel, the instep, you've got five regions. You have so many, of course, beautiful things.

but then also really unique things, maybe some decaying things, many delicious things. So I love this huge area. And to sort of add to that, my maternal grandparents came from the instep, this really impoverished region called Lucania or Basilicata. Now, in your book, you mentioned that you guys thought you came from Naples for a long time. Can you share that story about how you discovered where you were from? Yeah, I mean, I think this story is not unique to my family at all. So many descendants of Italian economic migrants never really knew their true origins,

but instead know the port from which their family departed. And that's because people were fleeing really abject poverty and were eager to find a new beginning in the U.S. at the turn of the 20th century. So we're not so into sharing details of their origins. And many never ever returned, not even to visit family that might have been left behind. So after my maternal grandmother passed away, we found like literally the whole family tree scribbled on hotel stationery. So it had been there like in a drawer the whole time. Wow. But no one had known about it. So we're not from Naples, although I deeply treasure that city. as though it's my own. We're from about 200 kilometers south up there. And I think your family was among the four million Italians who set sail for America in the late 19th, early 20th century. And you wrote in your book that this was motivated by the Italian unification, really destroying the South's rural economies. Can you talk a little bit more about

that? Because I haven't heard too much about that. I mean, all of South Italy was under Spanish dominion until 1861. And when the northern king, Victor Emmanuel II, and his general Garibaldi, said about unifying Italy, they weren't purely driven by the philosophical idea that the entire peninsula should be under single rule, but instead out of greed and a desire to expand their wealth. And the South had a lot of agricultural wealth and mineral wealth and a lot of the land was sort of managed by this equilibrium between landed nobles and peasants who farmed the land and lived off of it. And these very wealthy, often people of Spanish origin or people who had been appointed by the Spanish ruling class that ruled South Italy, as well as the church, they owned all

these lands and they were seen as a threat to unification and perhaps might seed rebellion. and so their lands were broken up, and that led to complete destruction of the sort of agricultural balance. And so people previously lived off those lands started to starve. And over four million people left South Italy from the late 19th century until the early 20th century. So quite a huge number of people, and many millions of others went to the north, Milan, Turin, Rome. So you can imagine how devastated the economy would have been just simply due to the exodus of so many people. Yeah, and they never fully recovered, did they? No, there's some places like Puglia feels really wealthy in areas, but so does coppery in parts of Naples.

But I would say generally when you're encountering parts of the South, there is this sense that infrastructure and economic development were neglected and in many ways deliberately so by policies made in role. the capital. So when we're talking about southern Italy, where are we talking exactly? What are the five regions that you cover in food of the Italian south? Moliza, which is just an hour and 45 minutes south east of Rome. Campania, which is the next region you encounter its most famous for Naples, Pompeii and the Malfi Coast. Basilicata, known for Matera. Puglia, which is the heel, and has cities like Lecce and Body, and then Calabria the Toll, famous for its spicy peppers and all sorts of very strongly flavored foods. Let's talk about more about this spice and the different international influences that have

affected the South. So there's been invasions, there's been trade, there's been refugees coming. When we think of food of the Italian South, what are some of these international influences that we see? Well, it's always so funny when you hear Italians, especially now in the current political climate, talk about culinary purity because the South was a super rich place with lots of trade. And so it absorbed the ingredients of the new world, of North Africa, of even the Far East, and certainly South Asia and the Middle East. And a lot of the things that we consider classically Italian, whether it's an eggplant parmesan, or tomato sauce are the product of things that were imported.

Eggplants land in South Italy and the Middle Ages. Tomatoes are introduced by the Spanish from Central America. Peppers as well, potatoes, lots of legumes, even prickly pears. Those are new world elements. And then citrus, almonds, the list goes on. So many things were introduced. And what's always really fascinating to me is how some 9th century, Arab hydraulic engineering allowed very arid desert-like places to be turned into fertile, lush

gardens. And so you still have the legacy of this really agricultural engineering that's over a millennium old that's still informing where people can grow things. That's so interesting. So I would love to go on a little virtual road trip with you of southern Italy and talk about what we should be eating and where. And since Naples is so close to your heart, let's start there. So in your book, you have some wonderful pizza recipes. When people think of Neapolitan-style pizza, what are they thinking of exactly? Well, I mean, I think most people think of the thick-rimmed pie that's, you know, at least 12, if not more inches in diameter that has a sort of soupy, wet interior. And I want them to banish that idea from their minds when they go to

Atilio, my favorite pizzeria. And that sort of soupy, wet, damp interior, which most Neapolitans would say is like, that's how pizza is supposed to be. I would strongly disagree when you go to places that are managing the temperature of their ovens and are really interested in the final product. You actually get a pizza that is quite balanced and not too humid. And at Atilio, which is in this really raucous neighborhood called Pinyaseca, you find a perfectly executed pizza. And they're not in every guidebook like Dami Kelle or Serbilo, but that also means they're not doing 500 covers at lunch and their ovens aren't overextended and they're just really detail-oriented and their stuff is great and they have wonderful fried starters as well.

So what are some other foods that we should try in Naples that are local to the region? Well, you should always eat lots of pastry with your coffee. Whenever I take the train to Naples, I walk out of the station and to Piazza Garibaldi and had right to a place called Mexico. And it's a cafe owned by the Pasalacqua coffee roastery. And they have really delicious foliatelles, which are either shortbread or sort of flaky filo pastry filled with seasoned ricotta studded with candied orange zest and flavored with spices. It's really delicious. That sounds amazing. It's so good. It's a little heavy, but very delicious. like so many Neapolitan things.

And I would hit a trotteria like Chibicalti, which is basically like a cafeteria more than a trotteria, and have some really, really aggressively cooked vegetables, peppers and a sort of sweet and sour sauce, or all sorts of baked pastas. And one of my favorite Neapolitan things are cannella al-rague. And Neapolitan ragu is not like the bowl. Monezé one is super simmered meat with a lot of onions and really sort of viscous sauce. And it's tossed

with candelae, which are the two-foot-long tubular pasta. It's one of the few pauses you actually break into the sauce. And all of this sort of rich, unctuous tomato sauce gets into the interior of the tubes and it's so delicious. In your book, you mentioned that your favorite pasta brand is Pastifio di Martino. I believe that's based in the Campania region. Why do you like that brand so much? So there are actually two pasta companies owned by the same family. So Giuseppe di Martino owns Pasta Fes de Martino. It's a sort of big family company that makes really good affordable, like your sort of daily use dried pastas. And then he has a smaller boutique brand called Pastafecio de Compi. And that's really next level. It's also, I would say, like, eight to ten times more expensive.

So rather than paying a euro for a pack, sometimes you pay, like, well, maybe not quite eight to ten times, but six euros for a pound of pasta, which I know a lot of consumers think is absolutely outrageous. But that brand uses traceable wheat that's harvested in small quantities. And that's not the norm for dried pasta, because dried pasta historically is an industrial product, even smaller companies produce in an industrial way. And what's so perfect about pasta feature day compi and what goes into the increased cost is the time that is dedicated to slowly drying the pasta. And most companies, of course, want their product to move in and out and they'll practically cook the pasta. They're drying it at such high temperatures. But pasta feature day compi dries for over 24 hours for some shapes, quite a bit longer for others. And so you get this incredible texture and structural integrity when you go to cook it at your own home.

What's different about it when you're eating it? Well, you can actually taste the wheat flavor. The texture is really defined. Like this is when you really get a sense of like what al dente really means. So often pasta is because they're dried very aggressively before being boxed. There's this very small window between when they have some bite to them and when they're overcooked. and the slow absorption of the water for a quality durham wheat pasta that's dried very slowly is much more paste. So you have a sort of wider space when you can be absorbing liquid into the pasta.

And that allows you to marry the flavors of the sauce with the pasta. You can cook it for longer in its condiment and let it absorb while it cooks while still staying really toothsome. Yeah, that does sound really good. And you had a really nice description in your book about how they made pasta back in the day before industrialization. Can you sort of like bring us back to what a kitchen would look like back then? Yeah, so especially in Gragnano, people would make dough in their homes, and then they would shape the pasta, and then they would dry it outside. Imagine really long spaghetti, dried over a broom handle that was sort of positioned between two chairs. And Gragnano, which is en route to the Amalfi Coast, it's past Pompeii and Herculaneum, was an ideal place for drying pasta because it had predictable sort of cyclical winds that would go through the horseshoe-shed. town. And you had the geography of the place that would sort of trap the air, which would be very hot during the day and nice and cool at night with these great humidity fluctuations that made it a really good microclimate for drying pasta. And that was the sort of dried pasta invention

of sorts. I would footnote that Arabs were drying pasta in the Middle Ages, but sort of modern Italian pasta drying dates to the very late 19th, early 20th centuries. So I know that you have spent a ton of time in Naples. You like hanging out there. If somebody were visiting for the first time, in addition to the delicious food, what experiences do you think they should have? Are there any mustsees that they should definitely check out? Yeah, Naples is home to one of the greatest archaeological museums on the planet. And the Museo Archaeological Dinopoli has stunning works from Pompeii and Herculaneum, which are the Archaeological. sites that were excavated in modern times but covered after the 79 AD eruption of Mount Vesuvius. The entire ground floor is filled with the Farnese collection from Rome. It's spectacular. And it's just overall, like the most impressive collection of bronze, mosaic, and marble works from Roman times. And not just sculpture. There also are lots of kitchen implements and all sorts of

things from daily life. They also really love the seven acts of mercy, which is in a chapel on Vita Tribunali in downtown Naples. And Bia de Tribunali is amazing. It's this really long, really straight street that bears a modern name, but follows the pre-Roman Greek era path. And when you're walking through the ancient center of Naples, it's laid out on a grid, one that's been respected for more than 2,300 years. So even before the Romans were running that part of Italy, the Greeks were established there, and they set up Naapolis, the new city, which would become Naples and modern terms Napoli. And that painting by Caravaggio from the turn of the 17th century shows acts of mercy, numerous acts of mercy all within one canvas, and it's really, really spectacular.

And then just a short walk from there is the Church of San Lorenzo, beneath which the Roman and Greek era fora, these marketplaces were excavated under a church. And it's super, super cool. I love Naples. Somehow I've only ended up spending like days there, like one-off days passing through. But it's definitely a city worth much more time. I agree. Also in your book, you mentioned a sort of pizza pilgrimage. So if we were going to do a little bit of. day trip. I guess we would probably need a car to get to Pepe and Grani. Yeah, for sure. And I always urge people to rent cars. If you're limiting yourselves just to the cities of the South, you will certainly have a wonderful experience, but because that neglected infrastructure I referenced earlier is really real, it's only with the car that you can hit what I consider the most important places for fully understanding the south. And you can rent a car at the Naples airport or

the Naples train station and then head out of town to Kayazzo where Franco Pepe makes pizza. And it is, you know, similar to atelios, the dough and the bake are properly managed. So you don't get a sort of damp, soupy topping, but one that's completely crispy on the bottom. And then all the flavors are married on the top and it's so, so good. And Pepe and Grani is really doing something special. What is so special about it? The attention to detail is not the norm in Neapolitan pizza making because it was traditionally and still is considered a cheap fast food. Very few people invest in quality flour. There is, I mean, one might even call it like a flower mafia of sorts in which a very large company called Caputo supplies, you know, sort of banal, not very good flour to the

pizzioli of the entire Naples basin. And if, you know, a food is so simple containing flour, yeast, water, and salt, if you're skimping on the main ingredient, your final product can't be exceptional at places like Atilio in Naples and Pepe and Grani in Kayatsu and, you know, a litany of other places, they're investing in the ingredients. That makes a huge difference. The flavor is more intense, more in line with the sort of rhythms of nature, and the cheese is locally produced, not far from the pizzeria. It's, you know, properly managed so it's not too wet and melts perfectly. So you have, you know, all these things that most pizza yoli honestly take for granted, not really being in the forefront of Franco Pepe's pizza production. Excellent recommendations.

Okay, so moving on to the Puglia region, and I believe you reference this as like Puli is kind of like the new Tuscany. It sure is. I mean, I can't even tell you how many people have reached out to me this year to say that they're making a trip. Although that like Puli is the new Tuscany thing. is something people have been saying for a really long time. A lot of magazine editors have given titles like that to articles. Now I feel like it's not quite as exploited as Duskini, but it's on its way, at least certain areas. Yeah, so Puli has Bari, Brindisi, Leche, some of my favorite seaside towns in all of Italy. Do you have a favorite place in Puglia?

I love Leche and generally Salento, which is the heel. of the boot, and it is a really sort of culturally diverse place because you have the Salentino culture along the coast and the Greco culture, which is related to sort of Byzantine Greek in the interior. And we're talking about places that are not far from one another. And it's a really fun place to just rent a car, get lost, spend some time in the evenings, like having a pair of TiVo and dinner in the interior towns, and then hitting the beach, or not even like beach, beach, but like rocks that you can jump off of during the day. And Leche, the sort of gateway to Salento, is so beautiful. And in the summers in particular, it's really lively. And while there are,

for sure, tourists there, a lot of Lechese who have moved to other parts of Italy or other parts of the world go back for the summer, at least August. So you really do get a sense of this like local vibe when you visit in the summer. Yeah, I love Leche because they've got beautiful beaches, but also, like, their little historical center, it's like quite buzzing in the summer and the food was incredible. Like every restaurant we went to like never had a bad meal. I loved it. Yeah, it's awesome. So what are the foods that we should try in Puli? I mean, pasti Chauti for sure. They are shortbread crusts filled with seasoned custard, really, really delicious breakfast food and that should be consumed with a coffee spiked with almond milk.

definitely Petsetti di Cavallo, which is one of the classics of Salento. It's stewed horse, torcheneggi, which goes by a number of dialect names, but that's the Salantine name. It's lamb oafel that's been wrapped in call fat and roasted, lots and lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. And then, of course, Durham wheat pastas and breads. Durham grows in the plateau of the morja, which straddles pliny and basilicata. and it's not really adapted to making extremely extensible pasta sheets like you might find in the style of Bologna. It's great for little stubby pasta, like Orequete, the ear-shaped pasta or Cavatelli, which is sort of the curled up little stubbies. And Oreckete with Chimidirapa, I guess Broccoli Rob would be the English translation more or less, is a classic recotta, reconta, and.

and tomato, which is like a fermented recall with tomato, really sort of piquant, isn't a classic of Salento and really go with horacete and cabotelli mixed together. In your book, you had a little story about how the ear-shaped pasta came to be. What was the story behind that? So it's specifically related to the type of flour that was used to make aueriquete in a certain era and in a certain area. So imagine that impoverished period following the unification of Italy. Well, things just got worse for farmers, especially as Italian agriculturalized.

And people were really, really starving. So there's this legend that people were so hungry that they would chase after the big tractors that were doing all the grain harvesting and shooting out bits of charred grain. And then they would grind that and make flour with it. So that's probably legend. Instead, people were growing grain burning the fields, which is totally customary, and then using the charred bits of grain in their flour mix to make orequite. The legend and the true history are related, right? They show us that people were not willing to waste anything, even the stuff that they could harvest from their burned fields. And this really speaks to the poverty of agricultural swathza, bulia, at the turn of the 20th century. So could you talk to me more about how this desperate poverty influenced Cuchina Povera? Yeah, so the Cucina Povera, which literally means poor kitchen or pork cooking, is the concept, and it's universal throughout Italy, that you use everything. You eat the poor cuts of meat and the scraps from butchering.

The things that noble people might throw away when cleaning vegetables become the base for flour. flavorful soups. And what's so interesting is, you know, the Kuchina Povera is often assigned to the south, but almost all of Italy was really poor, and people didn't waste anything unless they were nobles. And the nobles, historically from antiquity to the present, make up a very small percentage of the total population. So when it comes to the Kuchina Povera of really any of the five regions covered in the book. I think you see it mostly manifesting in the stale bread use because people, you know, of all classes, ate bread. Bread was not. It was not something that was exclusively for the poor, but the poor would make it last as long as possible. So fresh bread would be consumed

and any little bits and scraps that were left over could be incorporated into a cassero. They could be seasoned and stuffed into vegetables or used as any really, type of filling for a baked dish, and some would even just be fried and used as a cheese substitute on a pasta dish. There's several recipes in the pasta chapter that use that technique. Speaking of breads, the cover of your book is a gorgeous image of focacha pleese. What exactly is focacha pleese? Foccia, which is a really general term, depending on where you are, denotes a Durham wheat and sometimes Durham plus bread flour-based flatbread in Bari, which is the place that the recipe takes its influence.

They also use riced potatoes to enrich the flavor and to add a little more sort of calories to something. And the cover focaccia is made also sort of in the central Pula-Berese way with cherry tomatoes sliced in top. and sort of final proofing phase, lets the tomatoes sit on the surface of the dough and they're sort of swallowed into the dough before baking. It's so good. Where can we get a great version in Bari? Oh, there's this place in Bari Vecca,

which is called Panificho Fiore. It's so delicious. And they could make like $2,000 a day and sell out, but they're really, really, really slow there. So they just like make one and they sell it out, and then they make another one, and then they sell it out. And then they close for like four hours at lunch.

But Panificho Fiore is so awesome. And it's a great spot to hit before you go to like San Nicola, or one of the awesome medieval churches in central Bari. Yeah. Before we move on, are there any other experiences or must-sees in Bari or any of the other Pliasi cities? Yeah, I think you should definitely hit Nochi. There's this whole area around the truly zone, those conical houses.

that, you know, like Martina Franca and Locorotondo and Nochi, are these really cute little villages. I love hanging out in those villages because, like, very few tourists make it there. They're all in Alborbello Bello where the highest concentration of Conical truly are found. And Nochi is awesome and there's this great place called Antico Locanda. And it's a troterie that does all sorts of very classic peasant dishes and not just peasant dishes too. There's, you know, meat and not. sorts of things that people can afford today. But it is my favorite place in Pula for a very simple meal. Highly recommend. Oh, and if you want fish, and you probably do, taking a little drive south to Pollyniano-Amar, you'll find datuchino. And this is like where all the fancy Berezi people go, especially on the weekends for like spaghetti with muscles or an assortment of raw seafood. It's great. Italians now eat in courses. They're famous for having like one course and then another and another. But in your book, you said that until the late 19th century, they were eating one pot meals, at least in the south. Are we still going to find some of these dishes now? You find it less now in cities and more commonly in villages and rural places. But one pot meals are still, I would say pretty common when it comes to like, meat, simmered meat-based dishes. Like when you go to Puglia or Basilica or Campania today, people are going to be brazing meat in often like a tomato sauce and they'll serve the sauce

with pasta, ladling bits over pasta, and then serve the simmered protein as the secondo. But a lot of the things that we consider classically Italian today are from the 20th century and don't have any like sort of super deep historic roots. You know, Italians weren't eating pasta every day until the 20th century. So if you're thinking about like the defining feature of Italian lifestyle now. And yeah, people like have moved around a lot in the past 100 plus years. And the way that people eat and the jobs that people do have changed the way that we consume things. And even the way that people eat in courses is changing a bit now because people don't have the time or money to invest in five full courses.

meal. I'm sorry, I'm hung up on that they weren't eating pasta every day because I know so many Italians who do. If they weren't eating pasta every day, what were they eating? It depended on where they were. Like in the Veneto, they were eating a lot of polenta. In fact, so much polenta that they were afflicted by these terrible, like neurological diseases, Pelagra being one of them. So don't eat too much polenta is the moral of the story. Why is that? What's bad about Palinta. Well, there's a neurotoxin in some types of corn and maize that wasn't being properly processed. And so people were just like consuming huge amounts of corn. And it was like basically devouring parts of their brain. And it's crazy the Italian state put people in like basically mental hospitals to languish and die.

And this is mostly in the Veneto, which does not like to remember this part of its past at all. They're very much into, you know, promoting their image as one of the richest. regions, but they're simply one of the richest because all the peasants were moved out or died. Yeah, it's pretty messed up. Yeah, in other parts of Italy where there weren't a lot of grains, people were eating a ton of stews, sausages, cheeses, things that were portable, especially in the Apennines where many people were shepherds and needed a portable kitchen to feed them. And, you know, if you think about pasta today, like, definitely tough. Aletale in Mologna were being consumed back, you know, centuries ago. But, you know, that tradition

is centuries-old one, whereas most Italians eat dried pasta, not fresh pasta. And that's the turn of the 20th century invention that was promoted by the government to deliver people calories at a time of poverty. Amazing. Moving on to Bicilicata. So I would love to talk about Matera, which is this year's European capital of culture. And Matera is actually an easy bus ride or car ride from Bari in Puli. So tell me more about Materan and how that plays out in your book. Yeah, Matera is a place that is so interesting because until the 1960s, people did not visit as tourists. In the fascist era, people were sent there as intellectual exiles. And it was a place developed in Neolithic times, populated by cave dwellings, and in the 50s and 60s, people had to be

forcibly removed from the caves where they were living with their animals, and they were transferred to housing projects built by the government. So a lot of the food that people traditionally ate in Basilicata was very, like, vegetal, really based on what they were growing in the valley below the cave dwellings and lots of legumes and dried beans and things. that could be reconstituted for soups, tons and tons and tons of herbs and things that grew spontaneously. And so what we eat in Matera today is naturally changed due to the fact people no longer live in their historic homes. They're living now in modern apartments with proper kitchens. And before people were transferred, there's a lot more communal dining.

People would have sort of big caldrons in central courtyards and simmer soups and stews and things and then share. Now people have their own individual kitchen. So there's no need for that type of dining. And there's a great recipe in the book called Cropiatta, which would be consumed actually this time of year in August after the major harvest was completed and farmers settled their accounts. And they just want to party. So they eat a lot of beans and pound a lot of wine. That was the fava bean soup that's in your book. Yeah.

Yeah, I went to Matera for the second time this summer. And it's gorgeous and also just shocking that until the 1950s, people were still living in caves with their farm animals, as you mentioned. And so didn't have a ton of space. So they were living their whole life outside pretty much communally. And the guys were shepherds and women did everything else. And they didn't have kitchens. And one thing that I thought was so interesting was that they would all have to go to a communal stove to get their bread baking. and then they would have these individual bread stamps so they would know what bread was theirs.

Yeah, it's amazing. You also have a recipe for potato and cabbage stew from Matera, I think. Yeah, it's from Rotonda, which is on the other side of the region, and it's basically like mashed potatoes with stewed cabbage. It's really, really good. And it's from this place, da Pipe in Rotonda, which is a very big. beautiful little village in the Polino National Park. Highly recommend. Are there any restaurants in Matera that you would recommend? Only one. I think, you know, Matera's food is generally for tourists and that includes like really loud Milanese tourists who are the worst, absolutely

the worst. And Maturani eat at home. So the things that you should eat in Matera are like gelato and Durham breads and things. You buy at bakeries, lots of vocacias. And then if you want to sit down meal, that's really special, a place called Stano is really doing great work. And their food is so, so, so good and not really adapted for tourists at all. Although, out of necessity, many of their clients come from somewhere else. In addition to the cave dwellings in Matera, which they do have some that you can go in and check out. Are there any other musties that you think we should see in Matera?

Yeah, the Mercato Rionale. and the new city is pretty cool. And just generally, like, the new city is right above the so-called Sasi, which are the cave dwellings. And it's really fun, not just to, you know, walk around all the cave dwellings and look at the rock-hewn churches, but also see where, you know, nobles in the 17th and 18th centuries built their palaces overlooking the Sossi in the valley. Next up, Calabria. What would you like to say about Calabria? everyone should go to Calabria. I would say 90% of the Italian Americans that I've met on book tour have Calabrian origins. It's such a cool region. Go there, rent a car, like land at LaMetia or Reggie de Collabre or whatever, and wander around, go to the Selaan National Park, the Polino National Park, hit up Morano Calabro and definitely the Archaeological Museum in Reggio di Calabria. Castro Villeri is awesome. And it's a lot of. And it. Yeah, it's so fun.

Like, Tropea is a place that everyone goes because there's a beach there and it's cool. But like the whole Terranian coastline is super awesome. Sheila is beautiful. And it's a fun place to go if you don't have like an agenda of 45 different cultural sites that you want to visit. You can really have an actual adventure there. And although some areas, especially some coastal areas have been like poorly developed by like organized. crime organizations that have completely ruined the panorama, that's part of Calabria too. So like, you know, look past it and drive in the interior and have so much enduia, which is a

very delicious, very fatty, spreadable Calabrian salami. Yeah. Speaking of the Mafia, so you touched on this in your book, but unfortunately, the Mafia is alive and well all over Italy, but especially in the south and not sexy Marlon Brando godfather type, mafias that are sort of like romanticized by Americans, but people who are enslaving other people to work the farmland. And in your book, you mentioned an organization called Gustiamo. I think that's helping to certify whether farms are using slave labor or not. Is there any other way that we can try to make sure we're not supporting slave labor or other mafia businesses?

I mean, the only way that you can do it is by, like, through a lot of time and hard work, find your machilio di fiduciusia, frus de evendlio di fiduciucia. We have all of these phrases in Italy that regard the person supplying your food and the the defiducha part is the person you trust. someone who's going to actually have a closer relationship and be able to guarantee that the food is being made and harvested in a way that is not promoting modern day slavery. It's really difficult. I struggle with it every day. And you're right, the mafia is not just in the south. It might seem like it's more prevalent in the south, but it's absolutely everywhere. There are people enslaved in all 20 regions. And this is well documented by international organizations, but barely spoken about in Italy because people are, first of all,

very comfortable having cheap produce, which is the product of slave labor, and frankly, not all that interested in the rights of people of color. And when you travel through the South, you will see people in pretty dire conditions, especially in August, harvesting in the blazing sun. Often those people are not being properly compensated or they've had their documents revoked until they've sort of paid off smugglers that have brought them to Italy in the first place. So I don't have an answer for you aside from doing what I do, which is find organizations that care about labor sources. And Gustiamo is one. It's a Bronx-based food importer, and you can order from them online. And they actually go to the farms that supply their olive oil and beans and pasta.

And that's the only way you can do it. Right. Well, thanks for including that in your book. I think that was a really important point to touch on. on a happier side of things. So we're in Calabria for having a good time. What are the foods that we need to try in Calabria? I mean, Induya is my number one. I know that's basic and I'm not unique because it's such a special thing, but it's, you know, a 50% lean, very fresh, spreadable salami that's spiked with fermented chilies. And you can sort of melt that into a pasta sauce or spread it on bread. Pork in general, all sorts of cured things, kapokolo,

which is geared pork collar is really delicious. Soaprasata, which is a seasoned, dried salami is really good. And lots of seafood, like swordfish on the coast. And so much fruit. I mean, Colabri is a place that produces a lot of really great figs that are so abundant in the summer that many are dried. And you can enjoy figs throughout the year. So strongly flavored foods, I would say. Is the vegetable calzone from there?

Am I thinking of a different region? Pretty much every region in the south has like a savory veggie pie. The name changes, like the dialect name changes. But yeah, there's like the, I think it's even called like generically like pizza calabraza in some places. But it's, yeah, like maybe not always looking like a traditional Italian-American calzone, but two layers of dough that are pinched together and filled with vegetables, sometimes salami, sometimes hard bowl, eggs, sometimes provolone. Yeah, dealer's choice. And does the veggie one go back to Good Friday and the rule that you can't eat meat? Yeah, totally. I mean, you'll find sometimes salted anchovies in that one,

which is totally fine for lean Fridays. Before we go, is there anything you want to say about Moliise? It's such a small place. I have never even heard of it, to be perfectly honest. Well, most Italians joke that Moliise no existe. Molié does not exist. In fact, it's a joke. It's a joke. Muli Zani tell about themselves often. It's super beautiful, mostly mountainous, has some really cool archaeological sites and tiny towns. It's a little under two hours, at least if I'm driving, because I'm like a little bit of a speed demon from Rome. And it's really magical. Also, if you're into knives, there's this village called Frosolone, where people still forge knives, and that's really cool. It's just like a fun place to drive around and be in the mountains. And

mountains and hike around and, you know, encounter the occasional village. And it's great. Mlise is easte. Well, yeah, and it's always great to go to a place that's not overrun by tourists, right? Oh, yeah, there are no tourists at all. Well, thank you so much for talking to me. Katie, where can people find out more about you and buy your books? So, tasting Rome and Food of the Italian South are available wherever books are sold. You can find signed copies in local Indies across the U.S. where I've been on book tour. And you can find out more about me and read my articles and stay up to date at katyparla.com and at Katie Parla on Twitter and Instagram. Awesome. Thank you so much, Katie. You got it. Thank you.

Katie has kindly let me share a recipe from Food of the Italian South, and you can find that at postcardacademy.com. This recipe is for the vegetarian and the soup that she mentioned. That is traditionally made in Matera around this time of year. And it's made to celebrate the end of the grain harvest. And it's traditionally served cold to help the Materani stay cool in the blazing summer sun. So thank you again to Katie for taking the time to talk to me today. I know you are so busy with your whirlwind global book tour.

Katie usually lives in Rome. But she actually became an Italian citizen like I did through ancestry. So if you have some Italian blood in you and you're interested in becoming an Italian citizen and learning more about the benefits of that, you can go back and listen to my episode on how to get Italian citizenship through ancestry. And if you liked this episode, please make sure that you are subscribed to this podcast and tell a friend about it. That is the best way to grow the show.

That's all for now. Thank you for listening and have a beautiful week wherever you are. Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free conversation sheet sheet with simple formulas that you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you're in a meeting or just talking with friends. Download it at sarahmicatel.com slash blank no more.