I’ve said it before, and I’ll continue to say it: one of the best ways to learn about a place is through their food and drink. You can explore a place all you want, but without a guide, you aren’t likely to zero in on the true local flavors and experiences. To this end, I booked a food tour of Naples called, “Culinary Backstreets of Naples”. They were not kidding about the backstreets. Pretty sure we walked down every dark alley in Naples.

Our guide, Marianna was born and raised in Naples. She was lovely – and a fountain of information! We were joined on our tour by two gentlemen from Graz, Austria – one was an attorney, and the other a psychologist. Interesting pair. Perfect English, natürlich.

We’re off on our walk – here’s what we tasted:

1. Sfogliatella pastry – basically phyllo dough with a sweet ricotta filling. Very dense, but yum.

2. Baba – a super airy cake situation with rum poured directly over it. Delicious.

3. Raw cod marinated in fresh lemon at a 5th generation, family owned fish market. And while I’m not a fish person, I choked down a bite so as not to offend the fishmonger.

5. The store owner gave us all a little cone of green olives called Tonde di Spagna. These might be the best olives I’ve ever had. I loaded up on these instead of the cod.

6. Next, fresh buffalo mozzarella and some green weeds that Marianna told us were called fiarelle, a cousin to broccoli. Extremely bitter. Fresh mozzarella has a salty, sour quality to it, and every time you take a bite, sour milk liquid oozes out. While I loved the fresh mozzarella, Anna was not a fan of the sour milk ooze.

More Walking, More Eating

7. Frittatine – fried pasta. It’s as good as it sounds. Yuuummm.

8. Limonata a Cosce Aperte, or open legs lemonade. It’s made with this special water (see photo below) that smells like eggs (sulfur). We watched the shopkeeper prepare the drink: squeeze lemons using an ancient juice squeezer, add egg water, then stir in teaspoon of baking soda. The baking soda reacts with the lemon and causes a violent eruption which you are supposed to drink as elegantly as possible before it all splashes down between your “open legs”. Legitimately bad.

9. Aglianico wine. Tasted like it had been stored the Napoli sunshine. Really, really bad.

10. Freselle (twice baked hard bread) – like a salty biscuit – with fresh tomatoes. Asked if this was a version of bruschetta. TL;DR: Freselle is NOT bruschetta.

11. Pizza was born in Napoli, so of course we had a pizza. Outstanding.

In summary of the day, this quote from Marianna: Everything (food wise) the French and Spanish brought here – Napoli made it better.

Sidebar

The ghost of Diego Maradona is alive and well in Naples. He has achieved deity status here.

Tried to do some jewelry shopping after our tour. But, by then I was super tired and super hot so I couldn’t focus.

Sicily tomorrow.

Salute!

Footnote

We have abandoned our scopolamine patches. One, the ship is super steady. We barely know we’re moving. Two, the patches come with a hideous side effect – they make your mouth and throat suuuppper dry. Which is super annoying. Will save these for when Ken and I cross the Drake Passage.

Travel date: June 11, 2025