Apulian cuisine
Apulian cuisine is characterised above all by the importance given to raw materials, both land and sea, and by the fact that all the ingredients are designed to enhance and not alter the basic flavours of the products used.
Apulia's sagre food festivals showcase local cuisine, cooking traditions and culture.
In spite of this, the dishes are richer and more complex than the number of ingredients and the simplicity of the cooking methods would suggest.
[6] The first cookbook on Apulian cuisine was Il Libro della Cocina from 1504, which covered the cooking of the nobility.
This demonstrates that Apulians were eager to adopt cooking practices from other regions and integrate them into their own cuisine.
Separate courses are a relatively new addition to the cuisine, because in the past a meal used to consist of a single dish.
The puccia (plural pucce) is a small, flat and round bread which may or may not have olives mixed through its dough.
[7] Pettole are deep-fried croquettes made from a liquid batter of flour with yeast, which may include boiled potatoes.
[12] Taralli are popular toroidal crackers made with flour, olive oil, white wine and salt along with other ingredients.
Pane di Monte Sant'Angelo stands out because it is traditionally made with only common wheat flour.
The PDO cheeses of Apulia are the aged caciocavallo Silano, canestrato Pugliese and fresh mozzarella di bufala Campana.
[24] Soups are especially popular as winter dishes, with a main role for vegetables along with legumes and short pasta shapes.
These include cavatelli, capunti (typical of the Murgia plateau), troccoli (from the Daunia), lagane and sagne.
[30] Next to the familiar combinations of pasta with tomato sauces, meat and seafood, there are some typically Apulian pairings with vegetables.
For example, the dish ciceri e tria uses chickpeas and lagane con puré di fave uses broad bean puree.
Other frequently used vegetables include fennel, zucchini, artichoke, bell pepper, cauliflower, eggplant, wild leaf chicory, the cardoncello mushroom and broccoli.
[33] The carciofo Brindisino and lenticchia di Altamura are respectively artichokes and lentils which have attained the PGI status from the EU.
Known as lampascioni in Apulia, these are usually boiled in water and seasoned with olive oil, vinegar, salt and black pepper.
[35] The black chickpea (ceci neri) was consumed more often before the 1950s, but production dropped as it was replaced by more profitable crops and legumes with shorter cooking times.
[36] Because they have a stronger taste than the white variety, they are often just boiled in water and served with oil, possibly combined with a small type of pasta.
[37] The grass pea (cicerchia) used to be popular in cookbooks of the 1600s, but has since fallen out of favor because the plant provides a limited yield and is toxic if eaten as a staple.
The large variety of seafood that is available includes sea bream, octopus, prawns, oysters, anchovies, mussels and clams.
Similar to escabeche, fish is fried and then preserved in red wine vinegar with breadcrumbs and saffron to greatly extend its shelf life.
Beef was lacking almost entirely from the diet in the past, because cattle was used for farm work or reared for milk.
Lamb, poultry and rabbit (often reared on farms) and to a lesser degree game were the main sources of meat.
[43] Apart from quality cuts of meat, there are also recipes which call for offal in the form of roulades and pig's trotters.
[44] The ingredients for sweets are sometimes influenced by the Middle East and include almonds, figs, hazelnuts, pistachios and spices.
[45] In 2017 Apulia overtook Veneto as the largest wine producing region in Italy, with a total production of 9.070.112 hectoliters.
[22] It has been producing grapes with a high alcohol content for ages, which were used by other regions in Italy and France for mixing with their own wines.
