VARI'S GROCERY: The Parade, Norwood in Adelaide, South Australia

It's the sort of work that can really get the appetite going, but for Roberto Tiataicossi the flavours of home are never far off. Next door in fact, in the Parade's own little Italy.

"You pop next door for some lunch?"

"Oh, all the time. I've got to be careful because of the salami and cheeses and it's not good for my cholesterol".

While Roberto slices away at the footwear, next door neighbour and friend Frank Vari is doing something similar to the prosciutto. When you walk in here you walk into one of Norwood's little gems and a little piece of Soriano the village in Calabria where Frank was born.

"Good morning"

"Good morning Signora, how are you?"

"Good thankyou. Yes please, could I have six slices of prosciutto and some of that montassio cheese?"

Frank Vari came to Adelaide as a young man in 1955, leaving behind his mother Stella. But he took with him his mother's love of fine food, and pasta, and the secrets gathered over generations. At first he worked here with his sister before taking over the Parade store in 1960. By then he'd married his sweetheart Grace and slowly they carved out a reputation for fine continental food which has lasted more than forty years. At times like these the memories come flooding back to the days when he walked the pavements of nearby suburbs, took down the orders and later made his deliveries in a Morris panel van.

"I used to get the order on the Monday morning and after my round come back here and do the order and deliver next day".

"So you just walk around the streets of Norwood?"

"Yes. Portrush Road, Payneham, St Peters and back to the shop".

Now he no longer has to deliver, the locals beat a path to his door as son Pat deals with customers who've been coming here for decades. But on his travels around the back streets of Norwood and beyond, Frank Vari made plenty of contacts and spotted plenty of olive trees and soon produce from nearby backyards was being delivered to the shop, for pickling in Frank's secret marinade - but don't bother asking for the recipe.

"A lot of customers, they come in. If I tell you and you tell them it will be the end of my business. Don't you reckon? That's what I'm thinking".

That secrecy extends to Vari's special coffee blend and when you've seen Vari at work with the cheese knife, you soon figure a secret should remain a secret. But you feel lucky to have been let in on this one, a true insight into the contribution which Italian immigrants have made to Australian eating. Like the exquisite cakes and biscuits, the lemon taralli and almond flake.

"Have you made all these biscuits?"

"I did in the beginning, not a lot of them. But in the beginning I did with my Mum's help"

"And slowly because the demand started to get a little bit more and I didn't have a lot of time and I was doing other things. So I got a lot of the ladies who are home and because they come from different regions in Italy and they'd have different ways of doing it".

"So each biscuit comes from a different part of Italy?"

"Yes. That's right, yes. And the flavours are different."

It's a very long way, in time and distance from days with his mother, back in Soriano in Calabria, but when you venture into number 210b The Parade, into Vari's Generi Alimentari Italiani, you soon get a sense of the rich heritage which Frank and Grace have brought to Adelaide. Vari's Grocery is open Monday through to Saturday with late night trading on Thursdays. For more information email info@postcards-sa.com.au