A bowl of spaghetti glossy with olive oil, garlic and parsley beside a hanging bunch of small red tomatoes tied with string and a dish of anchovy fillets on a dark volcanic stone table

Naples and Campania in the Pantry: How to Cook from the Jars

September 30, 2026

Around the Bay of Naples and the Gulf of Salerno, four foods that keep in a cupboard are protected by name. Dried pasta comes from Gragnano, a town in the province of Naples. Small, tough-skinned tomatoes grow on the slopes of Vesuvius and are hung in bunches through the winter. Long plum tomatoes come from the Sarno plain, and colatura, the amber liquid drawn from salted anchovies, comes from Cetara on the Amalfi Coast. Anchovies in olive oil from IASA, a company founded by a Cetara family, complete the set. Below, a table sets the five side by side, followed by the rules behind each and three dishes that combine them.

The five, side by side

Food	Where it comes from	What defines it	What it does in a dish	First dish to make
Pasta di Gragnano IGP	The comune of Gragnano, province of Naples	No more than 30 percent water in the dough; bronze dies only; dried at 40 to 85°C for 4 to 60 hours; no more than 12.5 percent moisture	A rough surface that holds sauce; firm and elastic when cooked	Spaghetti with colatura
Pomodorino del Piennolo del Vesuvio DOP	Seventeen communes on the slopes of Vesuvius, plus part of Nola	Bunches cut when at least 70 percent of the fruit is red; tough skin; hung with hemp string for up to seven or eight months	High in sugars and acids; used for a quick pan sauce	Mafalde with Piennolo tomatoes and spicy anchovy
Pomodoro San Marzano DOP	The Agro Sarnese-Nocerino; the consortium is based in Sarno, province of Salerno	Long, cylindrical fruit; grown and picked by hand; a numbered consortium label	Used here for a longer simmer	Tomato, oil and basil, simmered
Colatura di Alici di Cetara DOP	The sea off the province of Salerno, within 12 nautical miles of the coast	Anchovies caught late March to mid-July; matured under salt in wooden terzigni; filtered through linen; at least 20 g salt per 100 g	Seasons a dish in place of salt, a spoonful at a time	Christmas Eve spaghetti
Anchovies in olive oil	The Salerno coast	Fillets packed in oil by IASA, founded in 1969 by a family from Cetara	Melted into warm oil at the start of a sauce	Mafalde with Piennolo tomatoes and spicy anchovy

Gragnano: the pasta town

The Pasta di Gragnano IGP covers dried pasta made and packed within the comune of Gragnano, in the province of Naples, and nowhere else. The specification is almost a recipe. Water makes up no more than 30 percent of the dough, and the dough is pushed only through bronze dies. The specification gives the reason: bronze leaves tiny rough patches on the surface, and once the pasta is cooked those patches catch sauce. Drying runs at 40 to 85°C for 4 to 60 hours, depending on the shape. The finished pasta may hold no more than 12.5 percent moisture and must be packed where it was made within 24 hours. According to the specification, the cooked pasta is firm and elastic, stays in good shape through cooking and is barely sticky. The bronze-die pasta guide explains the rough surface in detail.

Pastificio Gentile is one of the town's makers. According to the company, the Gentile name dates to 1876 and came from the owners of that time, and the Zampino family bought the brand in the 1980s. The company dries its pasta naturally at low temperature, using what it calls the Cirillo method. It uses semolina milled from Italian wheat grown in Apulia, Basilicata and Campania, and its catalog runs to about 50 shapes, including a line made to the Gragnano IGP rules. Three shapes go into the dishes below. Spaghetti (shop Gentile spaghetti) is the shape for the Christmas Eve dish. Bucatini are hollow rods (shop Gentile bucatini). Mafalde are wide ribbons with ruffled edges (shop Gentile mafalde). The Pastificio Gentile guide covers the company, and the guide to cooking dried pasta properly covers the pot.

Piennolo: the tomato that hangs through winter

The Pomodorino del Piennolo del Vesuvio is a small tomato from the volcano's slopes. Its DOP zone covers seventeen communes in the province of Naples, from Portici and Ercolano on the bay to Terzigno and Ottaviano inland, plus part of Nola. The Vesuvius National Park summarizes the specification and lists what makes the fruit keep: a tough skin, a strong hold on the stem and a high concentration of sugars, acids and other soluble solids. Growers cut whole bunches once at least 70 percent of the tomatoes on them are red and the rest are still ripening.

The name comes from what happens next. The bunches are tied together with hemp string into a larger cluster, the piennolo, and hung in ventilated rooms. The park says they stay intact through the winter after the harvest for up to seven or eight months, with no modern storage. The other traditional way to keep them is "a pacchetelle," in jars made from family recipes. The park names spaghetti with clams and other seafood as the traditional use, and says local chefs also use the tomatoes in other dishes, including a version of Neapolitan pizza.

Gentile packs yellow Piennolo tomatoes from Vesuvius al naturale in a 580-gram jar (shop Gentile yellow Piennolo tomatoes). The guide to how the tomato became Italian covers the fruit's longer history.

San Marzano: the Sarno plain

Campania's other protected tomato is the Pomodoro San Marzano dell'Agro Sarnese-Nocerino DOP. Its consortium is based in Sarno, in the province of Salerno. The consortium describes the fruit as long and cylindrical, tapering toward a point, deep red with shades of yellow near the stem. Every step from transplanting to the last pick is done by hand, and the consortium says the crop cannot be mechanized. Each DOP label gives the origin, the producer and the variety, carries the DOP mark and has a number issued by the consortium. In the dishes below, the Piennolo goes into a quick pan sauce, and the San Marzano suits a longer simmer.

Colatura: the anchovy liquid of Cetara

The Campania region's agriculture department calls colatura di alici the heir to garum, the fish sauce described by Pliny and Horace. Under the DOP specification, the anchovies (Engraulis encrasicolus) must be caught off the province of Salerno from late March to mid-July, within 12 nautical miles of the coast. The region describes the method. The fish are headed and gutted, covered in sea salt for 24 hours, then layered head to tail with more salt in small wooden barrels called terzigni. The liquid that rises is set in direct sun for about four or five months. It is then poured back through the layered fish and filtered through linen cloths. Colatura is usually ready between late October and early November, in time for its traditional use as the dressing for Christmas Eve spaghetti. The region also lists bruschetta, Christmas broccoli and other vegetables. The finished colatura must contain at least 20 grams of salt per 100 grams and be bottled in clear glass.

That salt floor tells a cook how much to use. A teaspoon holds about 5 milliliters, and colatura, a salt brine, is at least as heavy as water, so a teaspoon of it holds at least 1 gram of salt. The FDA equates 2,300 milligrams of sodium with about one teaspoon of table salt, which works out to roughly 6 grams of salt. By that estimate, a teaspoon of colatura carries at least a sixth of a teaspoon of salt, and a tablespoon at least half. Colatura seasons the dish in place of salt.

IASA, founded in 1969 by a family from Cetara, makes a colatura (shop IASA colatura) and spicy anchovies in olive oil (shop IASA spicy anchovies). The IASA producer guide covers the company, and the colatura recipe to learn first covers the basic method.

Three dishes that use two or three at once

Spaghetti with colatura, the Christmas Eve way. For four, cook 400 grams of Gragnano spaghetti in water salted at about half the usual amount, since the colatura supplies the rest. Meanwhile, warm 80 ml of olive oil with three sliced cloves of garlic and a pinch of chile until the garlic turns pale gold. Take the pan off the heat and stir in two tablespoons of colatura. Drain the pasta a minute early, saving a cup of the water. Toss it in the pan with a handful of chopped parsley, adding water until the pasta shines. Taste before adding any salt. The spaghetti with colatura recipe gives the full version.

Mafalde with Piennolo tomatoes and spicy anchovy. Warm 60 ml of olive oil with two sliced cloves of garlic and four spicy anchovy fillets, pressing the fillets with a spoon until they melt. Add a 580-gram jar of yellow Piennolo tomatoes with their juice and raise the heat. Cook for about ten minutes, crushing about half the tomatoes against the pan and leaving the rest whole. Cook 400 grams of mafalde, save a cup of the water, and finish the pasta in the sauce with a splash of it and some torn basil. The pasta shapes guide matches other shapes to sauces.

Bucatini aglio e olio with a spoon of colatura. The aglio e olio with anchovy and chile recipe also works with bucatini. Melt two anchovy fillets into the garlic and oil, then stir in a teaspoon of colatura off the heat. To start, serve toasted bread topped with warm Piennolo tomatoes and an anchovy fillet on each slice. That makes a dinner from four of the Campanian foods above. For dessert, the torta caprese recipe makes the flourless almond and chocolate cake named for Capri.

The shop is at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver. Visitors can ask staff questions in the shop. Products ship nationwide from theambrosianpantry.com.