Food and wine traditions

Details: Category: bovas; Last Updated on Wednesday, 14 February 2024 17:00; Published on Thursday, 23 May 2013 14:41; Hits: 644

Local dishes are simple, poor and flavoured with the 'strong' and genuine flavours of a long pastoral and peasant tradition. They change according to the season and what the land generously offers.

Maccaruni homemade pasta shaped around cannìci (thin sticks of a herb), and cordeddi both seasoned with a sauce made from pieces of goat or pork meat cooked in tomato sauce (which are then separated and eaten as a main course) and sprinkled with salted ricotta, tagghiarini cu li ciciri, homemade pasta accompanied by chickpeas flavoured with bay leaves, and ricotta prupetti cooked in tomato sauce and flavoured with pecorino. Excellent served as an appetiser or aperitif are the lestopitte (thin pitte) unleavened sheets fried in olive oil that can be eaten empty or stuffed with the delicacies of the Calabrian Greek tradition. Zippole (zippole) are leavened dough sometimes twisted together with a piece of anchovy, stretched and always fried in olive oil. There is no shortage of cured meats such as capicollo and soppressata, and cheeses such as pecorino and musulupa (pictured), a typical Easter cheese produced in ancient wooden moulds handcrafted by shepherds that reproduce Byzantine Greek symbolism and symbolise fertility.

Sweets such as dried fruit, which used to be dried in the oven to be kept even in winter (figs, ficarazzi, toasted almonds) are linked to religious festivities and the making of Christmas sweets called 'petrali'. Easter sweets are the 'ngute', which are embellished with hard-boiled eggs. The oil is locally produced and so is the wine. The Cantina di Bova produces Fengari (white), Ambeli, Scerò and Marasà (red) from indigenous grapes. The red has a colour tending towards garnet, the nose is amply vinous with fine aromas of ripe red fruit and the taste is intense and harmonious-.