The Best Thing About Puglia

Let’s be honest. This is the real reason I came to Puglia.

Usually when people think of Italian food, they see red. Rich tomato sauce covering pasta and topped with cheese. But Italian food, and especially the food of Puglia is so much more. Everything is local, fresh, simple, and is allowed to take its time. Puglia completely embraces and exemplifies the "Slow Food" of Italy. With its 60,000,000 million olive trees and other agricultural products, it's easy for this region to create simple, rustic and mind blowing dishes. Common ingredients are durum wheat, tomatoes, artichokes, fava beans, courgettes, aubergines, beans, fennel, peppers, onions, seafood and lamb. And of course the best olive oil and olives I've ever had. Not to mention local cheeses, capocollo made in Martina Franca, and bombette (barbecued meat). Oh, and I completely forgot the focaccia and other baked bread we ate every morning for breakfast! Simple round disks of crunchy bread cooked in olive oil and topped with cherry tomatoes. I always forgot to take a picture of our breakfast snacks. But here is why I'm now going to the gym everyday and only eating bits of kale.

vegetables Sott'olio-preserved in extra virgin olive oil and vinegar.

cheese platter served with spoonfuls of honey and chutney.

orecchiette (little ear pasta) with turnip greens and a bit of sausage in  olive oil.

Tagliatelle with a ragu.

Meal two: Locortondo.

Locorotondo white wine.

roasted radish ribbons with a cheese breadcrumb topping.

wild chicory mixed with other wild vegetables with a bit of meat and a cube of cheese.

Focaccia

gnocchi in a cheese sauce

most famous side dish of pureed fava beans served with a side of wild chicory and grilled peppers.

mixed bombette: lamb rib, sausages, and I think some bacon wrapped ofal.

 a mix of potatoes, artichokes, fish, cheese, herbs baked in the oven.

I don't know why I felt I had to try rabbit. It was too sad.

 

restaurant in Ostuni

You can watch the woman make all the dishes from scratch. She was very friendly

wild vegetables, fava puree on toast and some sort of baked fish and cheese dishes.

polpettine: fried balls made with eggplant and cheese.

fresh fennel and other vegetables. fantastic dipped in olive oil.

capocollo ham made in Martina Franca

orecchiette made with a different kind of flour--either burnt wheat or semolina.

local no frills place in Cisternino. that big jug was 3 euros!

no frills bombette place is next to the butchers. you choose the meat and they cook it.

one of everything

buffalo mozzarella in Monopoli

 Eggplant parcel stuffed with cheese and shrimp and covered in tomato sauce.

the classic linguine with fruits of the sea.

Pasta with a creamy mushroom and sausage sauce.

Great little place in Monopoli!

another no frills place. Grilled vegetables.

Who knew lasagne is actually kind of flat?

orecchiette with wild boar ragu.

most meals are followed by complementary limoncello shots.

local restaurant

choose your meat to be grilled on site

first meal in Lecce. Pasta with fried pasta and chickpeas. Strange but good.

fried dough balls, meatballs, and potato croquettes.

fried squid and shrimp.

Lecce's local sweet sausage.

our table's view in Galiopoli

seafood salad

seafood antipasti

sunshine and wine

fish filled ravioli with pistachios and tomatoes

pasta with fresh tuna, cheese and a pesto.

 Melazane ripiene: stuffed eggplant

twisty pasta (designed to look like Baroque columns) with a strong ricotta and tomato sauce.

Alici arraganate: breaded anchovies in a mixture of cheese and herbs and baked.

mixed cold vegetables.