Reggio Calabria Culture

Reggio's culture is that of a Greek city that became a southern Italian one, and of a place that has had to start again.

The Bronzes

Two male figures a little over two metres tall, cast in the fifth century BC, with copper lips and nipples, silver teeth and ivory and glass eyes. Almost all large Greek bronzes were melted down in antiquity; these survived because they went down at sea. They are displayed standing, at eye level, in a room entered through an airlock, and the encounter is unlike looking at marble copies.

Bergamot

A citrus grown almost exclusively on this coast, inedible raw, valued for the oil in its peel. It is the scent in Earl Grey tea and the backbone of a great many perfumes, and it has been Reggio's distinctive export for two centuries.

The swordfish

Swordfish are taken in the strait from passerelle boats with a long bowsprit and a high lookout mast, a method specific to these waters. The fish is the basis of the local kitchen — grilled, in involtini, or raw.

What it eats

Beyond the swordfish: 'nduja and chilli in everything, stocco (dried cod, rehydrated and stewed, a mountain dish in a coastal city), pecorino from the Aspromonte, and bergamot turning up in marmalade, liqueur and pastry. The Greco di Bianco grown down the Ionian coast is one of the oldest continuously made wines in Italy.

Greek beneath

Southern Calabria retains pockets of Greko, a Greek dialect descended from antiquity, in a handful of Aspromonte villages. It is critically endangered and down to a small number of elderly speakers.