Tucked neatly in the upper left hand corner of the above photo is the Sfalassa Bridge in Bagnara Calabra, Calabria.  The Sfalassa Bridge crosses both the Lucanian and Calabrian Apennines mountain range in southern Italy and is part of the the Autostrada Napoli-Reggio Calabria or A3 highway. As HighestBridges.com writes: With dozens of tunnels and towering bridges, it is a showcase of Italian […]

Torrone (literally translated as “big tower”) is a sweet nougat or confection and is usually comprised of honey, vanilla (at times orange), sugar, egg white, and toasted almonds or other nuts.  Torrone is made throughout Europe, but the regions of Cremona (in northern Italy) and Bagnara Calabra in Calabria are well known for the product, especially hard torrone. The candies […]

My first experience with the Italian language was in utero and I suspect I overheard a conversation between my mother and grandmother in relation to food (something along the the lines, “cosa stai facendo per la cena?” or what are you making for dinner?).  Post birth, I didn’t aquire English until I was five or so; legend has it that […]

Pizza Recipe I recently had a wonderful email exchange with Dr. K, an avid home cook, supporter of local foods, and Scordo.com reader.  Dr. K was moved by our article on cracked Calabrian olive saladbecause of the suggestion that making food with others is truly a special, and uniquely human, activity.  I couldn’t agree more with him and in turn wanted to […]

Oliva Schiacciate or Calabrian Cracked Olive Salad One of the great thrills in my life, if you haven’t noticed, is the simple ritual of preparing and eating food.  The preparing part fulfills me on a tactical kind of level; that is, finding the ingredients, thinking through how I’ll manipulate the products, and working with the food.  The eating part, well, […]

Wow, wow, and even more wow!  I was blown away by a dry pasta from the Italian pasta company Pastificio Vicidomini, specifically the Tagliatelle. The Tagliatelle shape has been around for a long period of time and originally comes from the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy.  The word Tagliatelle is derived from tagliare, meaning “to cut.”  Tagliatelle is similar to fettucine in shape and often made […]

With the passing of my grandparents, my father and his uncles have moved to sell the first Scordo home here in the United States (purchased in the late 1960’s and just a few years after my parents and grandparents arrived in the United States).  The house is full of memories and Italian American traditions, as I spent the first five […]

What is Cucina Povera? A friend recently asked me to explain the concept of cucina povera and here’s the working definition I came up with: A style of cooking best represented, in the past, by the lower class (read: peasants) of a given society.  Peasant cooking aims to utilize whatever is found in the kitchen, household, farm, etc. to prepare meals. […]

The Culture and History of Homemade Grappa Homemade Grappa is traditionally made from grape stalks, seeds and stems (essentially the remaining components of the wine making process) and has been around since the Middle Ages.  Grappa was understood very little outside of Italy until after the War when some mass production started to take place.   Like many Italians, my […]

The tomato mozzarella sandwich is so simple it hardly needs explaining, but it certainly should be prepared more often by home cooks (hence the post!).   A good tomato mozzarella sandwich, like most Italian dishes and recipes, is dependent on great ingredients; therefore high quality tomatoes, whole or Buffalo milk mozzarella cheese, extra virgin olive oil, and bread are vital.  For my […]