Cuisine of Salento

The cuisine of Salento is humble and simple, but rich in flavours and colours. Many ancient dishes of Salento derive from the ability of the rural world and from the need to create new tastes and flavours with simple means on hand:

The Paparotta was the rich breakfast of the peasant before he started a long and hard of work in the fields. It was prepared with pieces of stale bread, legumes and vegetables of the day before stewed in a pan with a lot of olive oil and hot pepper. Today this ancient dish can be tasted in some trattorias and farmhouses of Salento, though in a more “sophisticated” version: the bread is fried and the vegetables and legumes are cooked only once.

The Friseddhe, one of the most ancient dishes of Salento, is bread baked twice and made with barley or wheat flour, slightly softened with water and seasoned with tomato, oil and salt. In the past in rural houses this simple, but rich dish was kept for months in “capase”, earthen pots which kept their fragrance.
A cheap and quick dish to be tasted in winter, seasoned with “pendula tomatoes” and served with a wide range of products in oil, and in summer, with fresh tomato and basil. It must be strictly eaten with the hands!

Ciceri e Ttria, that is to say pasta and chickpeas, in its original version of Salento is the pride of the gastronomic heritage of the region. In rural houses the chickpeas were cooked in a pignata, a terracotta pot which was left on the hot ashes of the fireplace and which gave a special taste to the legumes. The “ttrie”, a sort of small tagliatelle, were made at home and cooked in the same water of the chickpeas. Then, the dish was completed adding some fried “ttrie”.

The Chicory Soup with pork rinds is another typical dish of Salento which can be found today in many farms and farmhouses of the region. To prepare this dish housewives originally used wild chicory (“reste” in Salento dialect), a slightly bitter vegetable also used to prepare the well-known “Fave Nette e Cicorie”. In this case the chicory was served with cooked broad beans purée seasoned with extra-virgin olive oil.

The Orecchiette alla Leccese, different from the Bari recipe as they are rougher, larger and darker, are seasoned with sauce of fresh tomatoes and cacio ricotta (cheese produced in Salento farms) or, for those who love stronger flavours, with ricotta “scante”.
In the past the day when people had home made pasta was a real feast. Besides orecchiette the housewives prepared the long-shaped “minchiareddi” and the “sagne torte” with meat sauce. The small pieces of pork meat inside (“acchiature”) were a pleasant surprise for those who could find them!

Among the other dishes of the varied cuisine of Salento we have: the tajedda made with rice, potatoes and mussels; polpo in pignata, stewed octopus; pitte, pizzas with potatoes, pittule, fritters with tomatoes, capers or cabbage; pieces of horse meat cooked in the sauce for hours to make the meat very tender; peppers alla poverella with bread crumb, buttunate aubergines, fried and baked with tomato sauce, gnumarieddhi, roulades of grilled lamb’s offal; municeddhi, brown-shell snails fried slowly or with sauce and many other dishes…
Among the desserts of Salento we must mention the renowned pasticciotti with custard cream or the fruttoni, made with almond paste, the carteddhate for Christmas or the delicate dita d’angelo (crêpes filled with custard cream or chocolate).