First, a dish of great _peperoni_ cut up in oil.

This gorgeous fruit is never much to my taste, but I had as yet eaten no such _peperoni_ as those of Squillace; an hour or two afterwards my mouth was still burning from the heat of a few morsels to which I was constrained by hunger.

Next appeared a dish for which I had covenanted--the only food, indeed, which the people had been able to offer at short notice--a stew of pork and potatoes.

Pork (_maiale_) is the staple meat of all this region; viewing it as Homeric diet, I had often battened upon such flesh with moderate satisfaction.

But the pork of Squillace defeated me; it smelt abominably, and it was tough as leather.