Mistral made of Gragnano, a town of just under 30.000 not far from beautiful Naples, the historical heart of dry pasta-making in Italy. But we’re not talking about the dry wind born in the South of France that graces the whole Mediterranean with its coolness, but of a peculiar variety of it, the Marino — as it is commonly known — which blows from the sea towards the land and brings humidity and saltiness to the coast.

This is the natural characteristic that made of Gragnano the city of pasta. The reason is well explained to BBC Travel by Giuseppe Di Martino, head of Pastificio Di Martino and member of a family that has been producing pasta for three generations: “ You could produce and dry pasta every day (in Gragnano) because of the predictability of this wind blowing inside the village into the valley.” It is as simple as that.