Katie Parla’s grandmother had told her that their family was from Naples. So when Parla moved to Rome in 2003, she took trips south to explore the city of her ancestors. She became convinced after several trips that the connection she felt to sprawling, robust, unique Naples was in her blood. Then, after her grandmother passed, Parla learned she wasn’t from Naples after all. That was only her ancestor’s port of departure, like so many southern Italians in the early 20th century.

Looking back on the revelation, Parla writes in her new cookbook, Food of the Italian South, “We had no reason to doubt my grandmother and no one on her side of the family — especially not her upwardly mobile parents and grandparents — was particularly keen on preserving memories of the impoverished past they had fled.”