A Taste of Basilicata at Di Palo’s

It’s nice to know that after almost a century you still can jump on a subway to Little Italy in downtown Manhattan and shop at one of the country’s most famous family-owned Italian specialty food stores—Di Palo’s Fine Foods. Most days, you’ll meet Lou Di Palo, a fourth-generation owner, busily working and talking to his customers, who range from young hipsters to older foodies to neighborhood locals who have been shopping there for decades. Every single customer gets personal attention. You want to try some of the cheeses? They’ll take the time to walk you through the 350+ selection. Next door is a wine shop run by Lou’s son, Sam. Enoteca Di Palo contains an incredible, well-laid-out selection of select Italian vintages from small producers.

On a recent visit , I took a tasty tour through the shops’ selection of foods and wines from Basilicata, the small coastal region in southern Italy where the Di Palo family originated. Here are some of the delicacies:
    
Better than potato chips. Peperoni di Senise ($7.99 for a 20-gram bag) are dried sweet peppers unique to Basilicatan cuisine. When fried for six seconds in hot extra virgin olive oil and lightly salted, the smoky sweet crimson peppers become Peperoni cruschi, a regional favorite, perfect for snacking or to crumble on top of pasta.
 
Cheeses You’ll Love. Canestrato ($15.99/pound), a cheese from the pecorino family, is shaped like a basket and made from sheep and goat’s milk. Aged between six and 12 months, it’s a soft cheese with a nice spicy bite. Caciocavallo Podolico ($15.99/pound), the king of cow’s milk cheese, is produced with podolica cow’s milk, a smaller, skinnier breed of cow, and then aged four months.

A Toast from Basilicata. For a traditional taste, try the Aglianico del Vulture DOC, made from the grapes of an indigenous vine and known as the Barolo of the South. A newer varietal is Matera DOC, the most recent DOC wine of Basilicata that has become increasingly sought-after.

Perfect Endings. Il Forno del Granaio Macaroons ($4.99), made by an artisan baker in Basilicata, are small, crunchy macaroons that are perfectly sweet. They’re lovely on their own or to accompany an espresso.

If you can’t make it to the store, check out the retail website at dipaloselects.com for many of these products. You can also follow Lou on his blog, blog.dipaloselects.com. –Denise Shoukas

Denise Shoukas is a regular foodspring.com contributor and is the author of foodspring’s food forager blog.