The Comeback Kitchens

Years after a series of devastating earthquakes hit central Italy, some of its most important food towns remain forsaken. But the residents keep cooking-and the best way to support the recovery is by going back, and eating.

- Julia Buckley

NATALIA NURZIA stirred her thick caffè al torrone, a shot of espresso with milk and molten nougat, as we sat in her family's bar in L'Aquila, the capital of the Abruzzo region. "We've been here since 1835," she said, gazing across the square. "Not even wars, not even earthquakes could move us."

For generations, Nurzia's family has made chocolate torrone-the most popular version is softened by honey, swirled with cocoa, and mixed with hazelnut chunks to give an extra crunch-at Fratelli Nurzia (torronenurzia.it). They were there on April 6, 2009, when L'Aquila was hit by an earthquake that killed 309 people and injured more than 1,600. It was one of several once-in-a-lifetime quakes to rock central Italy in the course of a decade. In August 2016, the town of Amatrice, in neighboring Lazio, was razed to the ground. Two months later, it was the turn of Norcia, a medieval walled town in Umbria famous for its churches-and its food.

Central Italy has long been known as one of the country's gastronomic havens. Before the earthquakes, as tourists flocked to Rome to eat pasta all'amatriciana, Romans drove to Amatrice to eat the dish in its hometown. While foreigners dreamed of Parma's prosciutto, Umbrians knew the hams of Norcia, so good that the town gave Italy the word norcino-someone who cures meat. The area around L'Aquila, at the foot of the mountainous Gran Sasso National Park, was known for hearty, energy-spiking cuisine including that nougat. It still is.

Cranes now dot the skylines, but these paesi terremotati"earthquaked towns"-are rebuilding from the kitchen up. Last fall, I left the crowds in my home city of Venice for a road trip through the region: five days of wild landscapes and some of Italy's most emblematic food, to witness how tourism is helping heal the area's wounds.