Typical Pugliese recipes are from the cucina povera tradition, frugal family cooking, that take advantage of locally available ingredients, vast selections of vegetables with grains, olive oil and fish. 

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The history of the region is evident in flavors, ingredients and preparations. Olives and grapes were first cultivated by the Greeks.  Ancient chefs used fresh fish and vinegar, a combination still used today. Spices from the East were introduced through active ports like Bari, Monopoli and Brindisi. Novelties from the New World were introduced by the Spanish: potatoes, chocolate, prickly pear cactus, peppers and tomatoes (remember, before 1492 there was no tomato in Italian cooking). And he long string of dominating foreign powers left their mark on the cuisine: stuffed eggplant are traced to Jewish traditions, tiella the Barese housewife staple of mussels cooked together with rice and potatoes is a direct relative of Spanish paella, sticky honey sweets are reminiscent of the Byzantine East. 

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A rich selection of materia prima / ingredients, are produced in Puglia's ideal growing conditions which gives personality to the cuisine: capers, sea salt, oregano, olives, olive oil, honey, nuts, a wide range of rich and flavorful vegetables, superb hard wheat that makes almost spicy tasting breads and pastas, bitter greens, the freshest of fresh fish and the list goes on.

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Pugliese Ingredients and Pantry Staples 

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Bread: made from local durum wheat that provides a hearty, dense texture, a golden color and a spicy taste. Taralli are flaky little rings of risen dough that are boiled before baking. Friselle, which look like a bagels that have been sliced in half and baked again until hard, are prepared by softening them with water or tomato liquid and then dressing them with olive oil and tomatoes or other toppings.

Pasta: Fresh pasta in Puglia is made with just flour and water (no eggs) and dressed with simple vegetable sauces, sometimes foraged greens or the sauce where a piece of meat was cooked .. common shapes are tria, orecchitte, cavatelli, cicatilli, etc. Italians also make ample use of high-quality dried pasta which is made with, again, just water and the hard durum-wheat that grows throughout the south (the Senatore Cappelli variety is often used for pasta). 

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Grano arso: literally burned wheat. In the past wheat field were burned after harvest to reduce the chaff, an accidental result of which was to toast any remaining kernels of grain. People foraged for the leftover, now toasted, grain and turned it in to a smoky flour. The process is repeated today and while it's rather rare pasta made from grano arso does turn up every now and again. 

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Salt (sale): sea salt made from the sea with the help of wind and sun, often in salt pans established in the ancient age, generally with a high moisture content, irregular grains and complex flavors. 

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Dried fava beans and chickpeas: fave are a traditional staple and used to make macco, a fava cream topped with a handful of foraged greens. Dried chickpeas (ceci) and also peas are eaten along with a selection of hyper local legume varieties.

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Vegetables: vast varieties of vegetables both foraged and cultivated show up in Pugliese kitchens cooked in all sorts of ways.

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Capers: the buds of the flowers of the caper plant are picked before they open, dried in the sun and packed in salt; caperberries are the pickled seed pods that form after the flower dies. 

 

Almonds, hazelnuts, pistachios (mandorle, nocciole, pistacchi): Almonds particularly are cultivated in Puglia and are used liberally in sweet desserts and cakes but they are also often roughly chopped and used to top pasta or other savory dishes. 

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Almond milk (latte di mandorla): refreshing drink made with almond paste dissolved in cool water, usually quite sweet. It also shows up in caffè leccese.

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Herbs: Amazingly aromatic dried oregano, thyme and the like are used liberally in all sorts of preparations. Anise is used for sweets and distilled alcohol. 

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Tomatoes: fresh tomatoes are cultivated in quantity. The pear-shaped San Marzano and Roma varieties and the small cilieginio cherry tomatoes are halved, salted and dried over many days in the strong Mediterranean sun (figs are sundried as well). Tomatoes are also transformed into passata (tomato sauce) and estratto (tomato paste) which is the result of passata that has been dried on a flat surface under the sun until the liquid has evaporated leaving a dark red, thick essence of tomato.

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Fruit: Grapes, figs, citrus and melons are the main fruits cultivated in Puglia, both for export and local consumption.

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Seafood and Fish: with 650 miles of coastline fish and seafood is prevalent in the Pugliese kitchen. Sea urchins are common in season (winter), bivalves are cultivated at Taranto and fishing communities bring in fresh catches each morning all throughout the region. The Pugliese are known for their love of eating crudo / raw seafood (not necessarily recommended now that the seas are warming) and when they cook fish for the most part they use simple cooking methods to let the flavor of the fresh fish shine.

 

Meat: lamb and goat, pork and horse are the main meats (with their offal) that show up on the table, often grilled (like the stuffed pork bombette) or cooked in sauces (like braciole in tomato sauce).  

 

Vino Cotto: grape juice is taken before it starts to ferment, is clarified and boiled down into a thick, sweet syrup. Also called mosto cotto or vin cotto, it was one of the only sweetening agents available before sugar was known and even after, when sugar was too expensive for most families’ budgets. The flavor is less obvious than honey and it is used in both sweet and savory dishes.

 

CHEESE

a staple with ancient origins, cheesemaking was perfected as a way to preserve the calories in milk. 

In Puglia the cheeses are made predominantly from cow and sheep milk. Raw milk and natural rennet are used for the production of the most complex, territorial cheeses. Rennet is added to warm milk to form curds and whey, the protein rich curds are scooped into baskets that expel the liquid whey as the proteins knit together to form a solid mass, the solid mass or tuma is salted and left to age for anywhere from 1 week to several years. 

Burrata is a very fresh cow milk pasta filata (stretched) cheese with a shell similar to mozzarella and a creamy filling.

Caciocavallo is a cow's milk pasta filata cheese aged from several months to a year or more, Cannestrata is aged sheep milk cheese.

Ricotta is made from the whey remaining after the cheese is made. The practically fat-free whey is brought to high temperature (or re-cooked i.e. ri-cotta) so that any remaining protein comes together to form light, fluffy curds that float to the top, are scooped out and left to drain in baskets. Ricotta is famously versatile and can be used for savory or sweet preparations. Good quality fresh ricotta is rich and flavorful, and when beaten with or without sugar it goes velvety smooth. 

Ricotta salata is ricotta with salt added to the whey, it is dried and aged until hard and used for grating.

Cacioricotta is unique to Puglia where it is often grated onto pasta and true to it’s name it is both cacio/cheese and ricotta. Milk is innoculated with rennet and brought to high temperatures so that all the proteins together with the fat, float to the top; the remaining whey is deplete of protein. That means that they make 1 food (cacioricotta) instead of 2 (cheese and ricotta) but presumably in certain times of year the milk doesn't have the characteristics necessary to make both good cheese and good ricotta hence cacioricotta.

Also unique to Puglia is ricotta forte aka ricotta asquanta, a very intense, very sharp, fermented ricotta. It's spread on bread, used as a filling in panzerotti, or stirred into pasta.

 

DOLCI .. Desserts and Pastries: 

Sweets are particularly elaborate in the South of Italy and often incorporate vino cotto, honey, flour, ricotta and almonds and almond paste.

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OLIVE OIL

Extra virgin olive oil is one of the three pillars of the Mediterranean diet, together with wheat and wine, and it is in every Italian kitchen where it is used as both a cooking medium and a garnish, a flavor enhancer like salt, but it’s good for you.

There are over 500 olive varieties in Italy variously farmed regionally according to tradition. In Puglia make oil from varieties like Coratina, Cima di Mola, Peranzana, Bella di Cerignola, Ogliarola to name just a few. 

Genuine olive oils are made by olive farmers who follow personally each step in the production process, look for oils made by farmers that are members of FIOI the Italian Federation of Independent Olivegrowers. A few good Pugliese producers to  look for are Intini, Le Tre Colonne and Mimì.

 

WINE

Puglia like all regions of Italy has a rich archive of native grape varieties that winemakers transform into a wide range of territorial wines.

Red varieties in Puglia: uva di Troia, bombino nero, primitivo (a passito version is made at Manduria), negroamaro (there is a fizzy version made at Otranto), malvasia nera, aleatico, susumaniello, etc.

White varieties in Puglia,, for both still and bubbly wines: verdeca, bianca d'Alessano, pampanuto, bombino bianco, the aromatic minutolo, etc. 

Given the temperatures that encourage reds to be super intense winemakers often choose a vinification in rosato aka rosè (the first rosato bottled in Italy was by a Pugliese cantina). 

The most well known appelations are the DOCs Castel del Monte north of Bari, Gioa del Colle, Locorotondo and Martina Franca in the Valle d'Itria, Primitivo di Manduria in the eastern zone of the Alto Salento, with Nardò, Terra d'Otranto and Salice Salentino down in the Salento.