The Accademia Italiana del Peperoncino has its headquarters in Diamante and is the organisation behind the September Festival del Peperoncino — five days of cooking competitions, tastings, lectures, and street food that fill the town with the smell of frying chili. Outside the festival you can usually visit the academy's small museum-shop in the old town and pick up local products: chili-infused oils, salami, honey, even chocolate.
The chili itself, peperoncino calabrese, is a small intensely flavoured variety that arrived in Calabria from the New World in the 16th century and was adopted as a poor man's spice. It now defines the region's cooking. The academy is the best place in Diamante to understand why a single ingredient can carry so much regional identity.