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Calabria is the toe of the boot that is Italy -- a rugged peninsula where grapevines and fig and olive trees cling to the mountainsides while the sea crashes against the cliffs on both coasts. Calabria is also a seedbed of Italian-American culture: in North America, more people of Italian heritage trace their roots to Calabria than to almost any other region in Italy.Mark Rotella's Stolen Figs is a marvelous evocation of Calabria and he Calabresi, whose way of life is largely untouched by the commerce that has made Tuscany and Umbria into international tourist destinations. A grandson of Calabrese immigrants, Rotella persuades his father to visit their ancestral home for the first time in thirty years; once there, they meet Giuseppe, a postcard photographer and an informal guide to all things Calabrese. Thus familiarized with Calabria, Rotella returns there at Easter time, and they travel around the region, Giuseppe initiates him -- and the reader -- into its secrets: how to make soppressata and 'nduja; where to find hidden chapel and grottoes; and, of course, how to steal a fig without actually committing a crime.Stolen Figs is a model travelogue -- at once charming and wise, and full of the earthy and unpretentious sense of life that, now as ever, characterizes Calabria and its people.

"Better than gelato. Not to be missed."

Kirkus, 05/15/2003

"There are already bad books on the subject; this one is good, the product of persistent, gentle curiosity and persistently open eyes."

Michael Pye, New York Times Book Review, 06/01/2003

Stolen Figs: And Other Adventures in Calabria: Search Results