JEREMY: Hello and welcome to another episode of Eat This Podcast with me, Jeremy Cherfas. A few days ago I decided to give myself a treat. I left the house just before seven in the morning, took a bus to the main train station and got on the fast train from Rome to Bari. I was on my way to Polignano a Mare, a small town a little way south of Bari, on the Adriatic coast of Puglia. It's a stunningly beautiful little town, perched on cliffs above a clear blue sea.
You've probably seen it on travel sites and holiday brochures. But what brought me here was a new book about the food and ingredients that make Puglia so special. FLAVIA: My name is Flavia Giordano and my book is called Puglia, in Italian Storia di Ingredienti Cucina Territorio, and in English, A Cooking Journey through a Land and its Unique Ingredients, published by Ziczic Edizioni in Polignano.
JEREMY: I found it interesting, in the book, that you spent time living in Sweden before you came back here. And I just wonder when you were in Sweden, what was the one thing about Puglia that you really missed? FLAVIA: I didn't know until I came back because when I was in Sweden, I felt like from the cooking perspective, everything was possible. So I thought I was cooking Apulian style because, I mean, the techniques were Apulian but the fresh ingredients, I always source them locally.
So I adapted the cooking technique to their local potatoes, to their local asparagus, o n Apulian recipes, which to me worked. But when I came back to Puglia, I realized that what I missed was the context, because, I don't know, it's the same thing. You can have a tiramisu in Stockholm, but when you have tiramisu in Roma, it's another thing. Or when you have tiramisu in Veneto, is another thing, is the context. You can have. I mean, every dish can -- almost every dish --
you can cook it abroad. But here the context and also the ingredients you can find makes it a completely different experience. So I feel like I was back on my place. JEREMY: And is that why you wrote the book? FLAVIA: I think so, because I started to ... I had an idea to write a book about Italian ingredients, but i couldn't make it while I was in Sweden. But when I came back to Italy and to Puglia, I felt like I was in my natural habitat,
and the energy. And also, you know, you go to the markets -- and I always go to the market in Polignano -- and I meet nonnas, and also my man that sells me vegetables, always come up with an idea, a recipe, a suggestion. So when I talk about the context, I'm talking about this, the social part of food, the interaction that makes a market interesting to shop from, not only because you have better ingredients, but also you can talk, you can share ideas.
And the other thing I always do while we are, while I'm here in Puglia, I always visit the producers. So I go exactly to the source of the ingredients. And so this is a completely different thing. JEREMY: Puglia. For a lot of people, for a lot of tourists, Puglia is more, it's the heel of Italy, it's more the Salento. But it's much bigger than that. Can you describe for me the geographical region of Puglia?
FLAVIA: Yeah. So Puglia, as you said, is the high heel, il Taccho d'Italia, and it's a very long region. So in fact, when you are driving by car in Italy and you see for the first time in the province of Foggia, the panel says Puglia, you get excited, and because you feel, okay, I'm finally in Puglia. And then, if you have to arrive to Bari or to Lecce, you have to calm down because it will take a while in your travel. So it's narrow and long as a region and very diverse.
And also, if you consider just the coast, it's more than 850 kilometers of coast, and as length like 400 kilometres. So very, very long, almost the half of the length of Italy. And it's divided in different provinces . So on the upper part we have the area of Foggia with the Promontorio del Gargano. A nd this is , I mean, to simplify, it's a large pianura, a large plain, tavoliere. And since we are talking about food, it is mainly known for cereals ,
for wheat and durum wheat. Then we have this backbone is called Le Murge, that goes from the province of Barletta-Andria-Trani, continues in the area of Bari and goes up to the core. We have Bari, I mean the main town. And then we have Lecce. So we have ... And of course in the other side, because the majority of these towns are placed geographically on the Adriatic Sea, while the other province, the province of Taranto, is placed on the Ionian Sea.
JEREMY: And do the different regions have very different cuisines, very different culinary habits, or is it more constant through the whole region? FLAVIA: Of course there are, there are ... It's a big difference in the different provinces, also because this is linked to biodiversity. Puglia is known for a tapestry of different vegetables. And when I say this, it's really different.
Talking about, for example, the unripe melons in the area where we are, Polignano, Fasano, they are called barattierre and they are a specific one. They are round, while if you go down to Otranto and the Lecce province, they are called meloncella and they have another colour, because here the melon is more green and has a different flavour. So it makes sense that from different produce you can end up with different dishes.
JEREMY: So is there like a typical dish from Foggia or a typical dish from Lecce? FLAVIA: T here is a recipe, it's very dear to my heart, it's the pancotto fogliano, which is a soup made using stale bread and vegetables. Normally leafy vegetables, as a wild chicory, cichoria sylvatica, and potatoes. And this is specific of the area of Foggia.
While in Lecce they have a very nice shape of pasta, which is called Sagne Ncannulate, which are like ribbons, carnival ribbons, and they are normally served with tomato sauce, or sometimes even with chickpeas. And this is a pasta shape, Sagne Ncannulate, linked to San Joseph because Saint Joseph was a carpenter. And this pasta looks like a wooden ribbon you make as a ... JEREMY: ... Oh, when you're planing the wood, yes, to make it smooth? SPEAKER3: Yeah, exactly.
JEREMY: Let's let's go back to the Pancotto. Foggia is famous for wheat. Good bread as well. So do you think this is part of the respect for even stale bread? That it must find a use. FLAVIA: Yeah. We we have a big respect for stale bread. I mean, you know for sure the expression cucina povera. So cucina povera , in Puglia , is a must. And it's also because to the quality of the ingredients. I discovered that you cannot use stale bread in the US because it becomes mouldy before it ...
you can make it stale bread. While for us we use stale bread for making pangrattato, like breadcrumbs, or we mix it in frittatas. So there's a lot of respect for this, and love and creativity. So it's really having a few ingredients, making great dishes. JEREMY: And coming back to pasta shapes , another of the pasta shapes that's very much associated with Bari is the orecchiette. People say orecchiette is a little ear . T o me, i have to say, it doesn't look like an ear.
I don't know why they're called orecchiette. They could be called little cups or little ... I don't know. How does a pasta get associated with a place so strongly that orecchiette, all the women in Bari, it seems to me, are on the street and the pasta shape they're making, it's almost all orecchiette. Well, how do you explain that? FLAVIA: I mean, it's ... Orecchiette is iconic.
A dish of Bari and Puglia. But Bari has a particular technique also in shaping this, because you can shape orecchiette just flipping the dough over your thumb. So reversing the dough. But what we do in Bari is special. It's like a tricky movement you do with your no thumb but the two index fingers and the blade. So we make a specific movement that you have to go to Bari Vecchia to see it and see the ladies.
They do it and it's unique. And this technique is called arco basso because arco basso -- or in dialect from Bari Vecchia, ?? -- it means low arch, because this is in the area right in front of the castle, where there is a small arch, where there's a community of of women that lives there and make orecchiette. JEREMY: But are they doing it just because their grandmothers did it, and their grandmothers did it? FLAVIA: I mean, yes and no, because now it's something that evolved a little bit.
Now it's turning more also into a bigger economy. So it started for, like, housewives doing pasta and selling to the neighbours. And now they are scaling up and they are also facing for the first time ... I mean, they are taking up so, more seriously, also as entrepreneurs because I mean now they open their knowledge and their technique and their food to tourists from all over the world. They visit Bari to see them. They need to pay attention to specific rules about food industry.
And also, when you run a company, you have to pay taxes. So it's a scale up, it's scaling up. And now we are in the moment when this is shifting from a tradition that used to be, I mean, housewives repeating a tradition, to something that is becoming part of the economy. JEREMY: T he pasta here, all of the pasta in Puglia, I think, is flour and water only. There's no enriched egg pasta like there is in the north of Italy. I s that cucina povera or is it ...
Is there a reason why the pasta here does not have eggs. FLAVIA: Yes, because we don't use flour. JEREMY: Ah. FLAVIA: Yes. Because technically, technically durum wheat makes semolina, which is another thing. Because if you see flour, farina, is associated to wheat, grano tenero, while we are using durum wheat. So that's why. The structure of flour made of wheat and semola, semolina,
made of durum wheat is different. So you use the egg to hold together the dough because the gluten is powerful, but up to a point, while the structure of durum wheat flour, semolina flour, is different. It has more gluten and also gives the dough more texture. And if you compare the pasta, the egg pasta, using flour, and pasta using durum wheat and water, they have a completely different texture. One is more soft and supple, while the other one is more plastic, like a Play-Doh,
like clay dough. And the way we use it is completely different, because the pasta, the egg pasta, is made ... I mean, you make sheets, you make lasagna. And then you can cut it. You make pappardelle, tagliatelle. While the durum wheat pasta is more like a sculpture, you can you make orecchiette, it's like small bowls. Cavatelli, it's like a small cavity. So it's more plastic and the outcome is completely different. JEREMY: Basics. Absolute basic ingredients.
One of the really interesting things in your book is that you go into the different kinds of olive oil, or the different kinds of olive varieties, and how they have different uses in the kitchen. I think people are really interested in that, because for most people don't even know the names of the varieties. So can you explain where these varieties fit into the kitchen?
FLAVIA: So extra virgin olive oil. For many years, centuries, it has been seen more as a fat to cook the food with, more than something to enhance a dish or something as an ingredient with an own personality. While people understand the differences between a Sangiovese and Negroamaro, they don't know, as you told, the difference between Parenzana and Coratina. They just don't pay attention, because it's just a fat.
But if you pay attention to this and try to go a little bit behind a label and actually explore more with your senses, there's much more to ... It's like another universe opens up to you.
And for example, you can understand a coratina pairs perfectly with a chickpea soup or with a bean soup, because it's a very intense fruity, with that bitterness that matches very well with this kind of hearty soup, while, for example, you are not going to use it on a delicate fish tartare because you are going to kill that fish once again.
So if you understand that every oil, every extra virgin olive oil, as much as the wine has a specific personality, I think you can really level up your way of eating and cooking Italian food. JEREMY: The problem is that most people, when they buy oil, the oil they buy, it may be labelled extra virgin olive oil, but it doesn't contain a variety name . It's impossible to find these things out. FLAVIA: Yeah, this is something, because the labels, I mean the labeling, is another issue.
It's complicated and I don't want to talk about this, but for example, there are a lot of olive guides, like there is Slow Food that every year issue a new guida agli oli. There is F los Olei, another competition that makes this excellent guide. There is Gambero Rosso. So what I first of all, I suggest, to start to browse a little bit these guides and also try to be curious about the olive oil producers, the artisanal ones. Talk to them, ask them which ...
So this is a mono cultivar, which kind of, which variety of olive? Y ou used which one in this? And taste. So this is the only way you can get a new knowledge about the extra virgin olive oil. And it's more like personal that buying in a supermarket. So that's why you are going to buy something alive, more than a product.
JEREMY: It's interesting that olive oil seems to be going in the same direction as wine, just a little bit later, because it used to be that the wine in Puglia was part of the great Italian wine lake in the olden days, and most of it went somewhere else to fortify different wines. But now the wines have become well known, well produced. So how did that come about? FLAVIA: So yes, you're right. In Puglia, we prefer to sell our grapes instead of making
our own wines. This is linked to the end of the 19th century, where a region as the Piemonte, the Toscana, but also foreign markets like France, Austria, wanted to have grapes to make good blends, especially for red wines, to accomplish different things. First of all, grapes like Negroamaro, Primitivo and Maiello [?], they are very rich in colour. So if you add this to your blend, they are rich in colour.
Then they are rich in sugar. So they, it means they are rich in alcohol and also they are grapes that can be aged. Not every grape can be aged, because sometimes there are wines that you have to drink in maximum two years and then they start their decline, while Apulian wines they become famous, not ... Apulian grapes, they become famous because they could make ... give complexity and body structure, colour, alcohol to these precious,
precious wines of France. So in Puglia now there are still people, there are still entrepreneurs, companies, that sell grapes or they sell wines in bulk. But from the 90s we are starting to producing our quality wines and not only the red wines, but also the white. I mean, we have fantastic white grapes. So it's ... there was a shift in culture and also in the way of making, being entrepreneurs. JEREMY: Presumably the people of Puglia always made their own wine for drinking at home.
D o they now consider the Apulian wines worthwhile? FLAVIA: There is a little bit of Questione Meridionale, I think, in what we do. So the fact that we are ... We feel like, a complex. We are not enough. We are not enough industrialised. We are not enough rich. We are not enough. But I think now, now we are more proud of what we do and what ... on our quality. We want to put a label. We want to identify what we do, because before, Puglia was a region with very few DOC wines.
Even now we have just four DOCG wines. So it's a process that is taking time. But now we want to put a label also because the quality of our raw ingredients, our material is excellent. We are learning to highlight what we do and I think now we are ... I mean, we have another mindset. We are, we value more what we do. JEREMY: Flavia Giordano, author of Puglia: A Cooking Journey Through a Land and Its Unique Ingredients.
As you heard, Flavia offers food, tours and culinary experiences in Perugia. Her website is SpaghettiABC.com. And of course, I'll put a link in the show notes at EatThisPodcast.com. If those tours are anything like the time I spent with her, which included a delicious, simple lunch, i'm sure they're fabulous and fun. My thanks to Flavia and her lovely little Italian greyhound, Carla, for making my flying trip to Puglia so worthwhile. A day definitely well spent.
For now though, till the next time from me, Jeremy Cherfas and Eat This Podcast, goodbye and thanks for listening.