Calabrian Food

Calabria, famous for their excellent and exquisite variety of food is described as a balance between the land and the sea. Calabrians have an array of food that uses ingredients from both of these places. Cheeses, meat whether beef, pork or lamb, and vegetables are among the food Calabrians most favour. Like any other Italian city, pasta and pizza is also a very important staple in the kitchen. Being surrounded by the sea, fish is abundant and a local speciality and is often cooked in different manners including grilled and smoked.

Calabrian food is characterized by its preservation. They often preserved their food, which is the opposite of other Italian people.  As a result, people invented cuisines that are very customary. Preserved foods include spicy sausages, cold cuts, vegetables in olive oil, and sardines which are made by curing fish like swordfish and cod. Other words for the typical food are sweet and cheesy.

Common desserts include sweet pastries like Cudduraci, scalidde and baked biscotti. Local specialties ranges from cheeses to pork like Caciocavallo Cheese, sheep’s cheese Pecorino Crotonese and Frìttuli or Curcùci or fried pork.

Typical Calabrian food wouldn’t be complete without their locally made wines. Ciro and Donnici wines are among the famous in the international scene. It produces red wines that are made from the home-grown Gaglioppo grapes. It is also the best wine in the DOC or the Denomination of Controlled Origin, the mark of high quality wines.

It is no wonder for Calabria which was known before as the land of food and wine by the Greeks.