When we talk about the typical dishes of Salerno we do not just mean the city of Salerno, but the whole province, which stretches from the Amalfi Coast to the Cilento. We have gathered the traditional recipes that are still made at home: handmade pasta, pulses, oily fish and festive savoury pies. If instead you are looking for what to taste in the city, from street food to sweets, read What to eat in Salerno.
Pasta from the Coast: 'ndunderi and scialatielli
In Minori they make 'ndunderi, gnocchi made with flour, eggs and ricotta, usually dressed with tomato sauce. Their origins are traced back to the ancient pallotte of Roman times, and in the town they are the dish of the feast of Santa Trofimena, the patron saint. We stopped in Minori after visiting the Roman villa and were struck by how soft they were.
Scialatielli, on the other hand, are a recent recipe: they were invented by the Amalfi chef Enrico Cosentino in 1978. They are a short, thick fresh pasta that pairs well with seafood. On the coast you will also find spaghetti dressed with colatura, the anchovy sauce of Cetara, which we cover in a dedicated article.
First courses from the Cilento: fusilli and lagane
In the Cilento hinterland pasta is still made by hand. The fusillo felittese from Felitto is long and hollow, made with durum wheat semolina and eggs rolled around a thin square-section ferretto, a metal rod; it is recognised as a Traditional Agri-food Product of Campania. It is served with the Sunday ragù.
Lagane e ceci, by contrast, is an everyday dish: wide strips of semolina pasta cooked together with chickpeas, with oil and chilli. A simple dish we recommend trying in autumn.
Pulses and vegetables: ciambotta and ciccimmaretati
Ciambotta is the summer vegetable-garden stew: potatoes, peppers, aubergines and cherry tomatoes cooked slowly in extra virgin olive oil. Even older are ciccimmaretati, a soup of mixed pulses and grains traditionally made in the Cilento on 1 May, as a wish for abundance. This is the cooking that made the area famous, as we explain in Pioppi and the Mediterranean diet.
Oily fish: alici 'mbuttunate
On the Cilento coast anchovies are eaten in a thousand ways. Alici 'mbuttunate are anchovies opened up and stuffed with goat's cheese, eggs and parsley, then fried. The filling changes from family to family. If you want to learn about the oldest fishing tradition in the area, read Menaica anchovies.
Festive savoury pies and sweets
At Easter, in many Cilento homes, people make pizza chiena, meaning "full": a pastry shell filled with goat's cheese, eggs, soppressata and sausage. It must be left to rest before cutting. Among the cured meats in the filling there is often soppressata di Gioi, and among the cheeses Cilento goat's cacioricotta.
For dessert we go back to the Coast: the sfogliatella Santa Rosa was born in the 17th century in a convent in Conca dei Marini, with a filling of semolina, milk and dried fruit. You will find it in The Santa Rosa sfogliatella.
In the surroundings
- Salerno and its surroundings: the guide to the city and the province.
- What to eat in Salerno: street food, dairy and sweets from the city.
- The wines of Salerno: the designations to pair with these dishes.
- The 5 most important food festivals in Salerno and its province: where to taste these recipes at a festa.
- The Cilento: what to do and what to see: the guide to the area where many of these recipes come from.
Top photo (Salerno): No machine-readable author provided. Giaros assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
