Our Calabria Cooking Programme

From hand-made pastas to succulent sweets, the Seven Days in Calabria tour is centered around the unique culinary delights of the region. Experience timeless Calabrian cuisine through private cooking lessons, an inside look at traditional farming methods, hands-on food preparation and hearty Calabrian meals.

Calabrian cuisine is known throughout all of Italy as the most delectable. The local food is abundant, organic and carefully nurtured from seedling to serving. Nearly every element of their meals - from Tropean red onions and Sila mushrooms, to olive oils and pastas - is home grown or homemade. Therefore, every household is knowledgeable on climate and growing conditions. Since Calabrians grow their own organic fruits and vegetables, raise and cure their own meat and catch their own fish, each change of the season brings a whole new realm of recipes.

Best of all, in Calabria, menus are incredibly localized: every town has its own culinary practices and secrets handed down and perfected from one generation to the next.

Provincial folklore and festivals also play an enormous role in food selection and preparation. As their ancestors before them, Calabrians still practise the ancient tradition of basing their menus on religious festivals and local, seasonal offerings. This assures that the Calabrian menu is in constant rotation.

Cooking Classes

A long-time friend of In Italy Tours, Marianna is an energetic cook who has a passion for feeding her friends and family. During your gastronomical getaway, you will learn the tantalizing secrets of her rustic country kitchen through hands-on cooking lessons.

Marianna's charming second home in the hills of San Angelo is just a few minutes from the center of Tropea. She opens her home-away-from-home to visitors in the spring when all her flowers are in bloom and the whole countryside is lusciously green. Most of the land at this lovely hideaway is dedicated to a large vegetable garden. Her outdoor kitchen, brick oven, oversized grill, spacious veranda and long wooden dining table make it the perfect setting for authentic cooking lessons. In the outdoors among the fragrant flowers and trees, Marianna uses ancient recipes to create delicious rustic meals you won't find in any restaurant - not even in Tropea.

Born and raised in Tropea, Marianna offers guests the opportunity to eat and cook the way real locals do. You will get to see her take one main ingredient and demonstrate a variety of ways to use it. This results in an intense array of flavorful creations from simple ingredients. During her down to earth cooking lesson, you could learn to make anything: pasta, fish, meat dishes, desserts, sweet liqueurs and more! At Marianna's, the food and the lessons are wonderfully abundant.

You will experience real life with Tropean natives in their own countryside home. See Marianna in her element as she introduces you to a vast array of recipes from Tropea. Before you know it, her table will be set for an incredible feast you can enjoy under the cool shade trees. Absorb her captivating energy during a festive day of cooking and eating accompanied with traditional Calabrian wine.

View the itinerary.