The day spent on the Amalfi Coast has been intense and rich of food discoveries. After visiting the production of Colatura di Alici (The Cetara Anchovy Extract), we continue our roadtrip on the statale amalfitana.
Here you can’t help noticing the lemon trees up on the slopes next to the road and facing the Tyrrenian Sea. This is the land of two fine quality lemons: “Limone Costa d’Amalfi IGP” on the Amalfi Coast, and the “Limone di Sorrento IGP” some kilometers norther, beyond the Monti Lattari. Both these varieties are used to produce the well-known limoncello.
Limoncello is a liquor made with just a few ingredients: alcohol, lemon zest, water and sugar. It’s the most representative digestif in Italy, and it’s frequently reviled by gourmets, due to the very low quality of the most bottles carrying this name. If you come here, taste a good limoncello, or if your diy-lover, buy some lemons and make an homemade version. You will be amazed how scrumptious it is.
People here take lemons very seriously. You can find them on the decorated ceramics of Vietri, in the limoncello (of course!), and in another excellent gourmet activity: the “pasticcerie“. Pasticceria is the Italian name for patisserie, and a typical pastry on the Amalfi Coast and the Sorrento area is the Delizia al Limone.
We stop at the Minoris’s promenade to visit the pasticceria of Salvatore De Riso – a famous pastry chef – where we are delighted by the offer of creamy cakes and pastries.
The Delizia al Limone is an half sphere of sponge cake, damped with limoncello, stuffed with a mix of lemon curd and a custard with a lemon flavour and covered with the same custards, softened with some whipped cream. Essentially a praise to lemon. This is a play of soft and scents, a bursting with freshness at every bite.
Back on the road, we reach Amalfi (here below, the photo of the Dome) and Positano (first photo of the blog post) just for a quick stop – since the parking fare is pretty high (3€ to 5€ per hour!). They are both outstanding little towns, we stroll along their streets, surrounded by lots of tourists, foreign tourists especially. In a deli we buy a piece of frittata di spaghetti, a popular and poor dish of this region, born from the need to use leftover. Indeed, as the name says, this is a frittata (the Italian omelette) made with leftover spaghetti, normally cooked the day before and dressed with tomato sauce. As we say in Italy “di necessità, virtù” – Make a virtue of necessity.
We leave the Amalfi Coast and therefore the province of Salerno, and we reach the province of Napoli, beyond Monti Lattari.
As the name suggests, Monti Lattari are famous for diary products. Indeed in this area many dishes with a generous use of cheese were first created. Some examples are the national-famous cannelloni – rolls of egg pasta stuffed with ricotta and covered by a sweet and savoury tomato sauce – created by O’ Parrucchiano in Sorrento or the less known Pasta alla Nerano. A veggie dish of spaghetti invented by Maria Grazia, the owner of the restaunt carrying her name on the Nerano beach, in Massa Lubrense. The recipe is kept secret, but it’s made with fried zucchini and a lot of grated cheese, likely the Provolone del Monaco DOP, it’s a semi-hard pasta filata cheese from raw milk. It makes an incredible savoury, creamy and cheesy sauce. Yum.
From Vietri to Sorrento, a 50 km roadtrip that connects the two main provinces (Salerno and Napoli) of Campania, in one of the most charming corner of Italy. Maybe we haven’t choose the right moment to visit the Amalfi Coast, close to a bank holiday, getting bothered by traffic and the difficulty to park. But this land is incredibly able to impress emotions in people like us, who love to fill our eyes with beautiful landscapes and to try straightforward and tasty food.
Useful addresses:
- Pasticceria Sal De Riso
Piazza Cantilena 1, Minori
Tel. 089.853618 - Trattoria Eughenes
Via Roncato 9, Termini di Massa Lubrense
Tel. 081.8081989 - Ristorante Maria Grazia
Via Marina del Cantone 65, Massa Lubrense
Tel. 081.8081011 - Ristorante ‘O Parrucchiano La Favorita
Corso Italia 71, Sorrento
Tel. 081.8781321
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