¨all of my living paternal relatives who aren’t in America are in Calabria, a southern region closest to the edge of Sicily, the “tip of the boot,” so to speak.¨
Yes! And I have dug nowhere near as much into Calabrian cuisine as I would like, but it´s on the list.
¨If you come across a jar of Calabrian chiles, consider yourself blessed.¨
Absolutely. I´d rate it with that one jar of Chinese pure capsium oil I found once. Purple, and woo! Good stuff. I was kinda afraid of whatever the hell it was in the bottom half of the jar. (But I used it.)
Two cookbooks for you. The family recipes aren´t written down - except by the Italian Academy of Cookery. They ran around and got recipes from cooks all over Italy:
¨all of my living paternal relatives who aren’t in America are in Calabria, a southern region closest to the edge of Sicily, the “tip of the boot,” so to speak.¨
Yes! And I have dug nowhere near as much into Calabrian cuisine as I would like, but it´s on the list.
¨If you come across a jar of Calabrian chiles, consider yourself blessed.¨
Absolutely. I´d rate it with that one jar of Chinese pure capsium oil I found once. Purple, and woo! Good stuff. I was kinda afraid of whatever the hell it was in the bottom half of the jar. (But I used it.)
Two cookbooks for you. The family recipes aren´t written down - except by the Italian Academy of Cookery. They ran around and got recipes from cooks all over Italy:
https://www.amazon.com/Great-Italian-Cookbook-Academy-Cookery/dp/0517635534
Then there´s the Italian Academy of Cuisine´s all regional specialities collection which is HUGE.
https://www.amazon.com/Cucina-Regional-Cooking-Italy/dp/0847831477
I haven´t cooked anywhere near all the recipes in the first one, much less the second, simply because there are too damn many (authentic!) recipes.
elm
those two will cover you for a lifetime