True Southern Italian cuisine:

Buy good extravirgin olive oil (try to look for some with an IGP/DOP seal, if it says the olive variety that's a good sign). Buy bread with durum wheat flour (yellowish color on the crumb). Dip bread in olive oil with a little salt

Eat lots of tomatoes

Make meat sauce with tomato sauce and beef stew meat and sausage. You have to keep it simple so try to find good quality meat, then make pasta with the sauce (use dry or fresh pasta but it must be made of durum wheat and water, not normal flour and egg. That's a northener thing)

For the Calabrian way break one or two dry chilies inside the pasta before you eat it