The head-sized citrus and super fruit cedro. The sweet, fragrant onions from Tropea. The spicy, smoky, spreadable ‘nduja. The piquant pepperoncini. Calabria’s cuisine is born on the backs of its stellar ingredients–cooked into rich stews, baked into simple breads, and melted into pasta sauces. Calabrian food is no-frills stuff. 

Tomatoes and eggplants are popular, seafood is as fresh as can be, pork finds hundreds of preparations, and, perhaps the most differentiating factor of Calabrian cuisine, food is spicy. Here, peproncino Calabrese, the region’s namesake hot chili pepper, is doled out with a liberal hand and eaten whole, fried, crushed, pickled, powdered, or in a paste.