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Februar y/March 202 2 XV MAGAZINE She, a witch of traditional Salento cuisine, grew up and trained thanks to the culinary secrets passed on by her mother’s friend, when she was still a teenager she looked to the future while maintaining her identity, using almost exclusively indigenous ingredients. In this part of Italy, fresh pasta is the absolute star of the table and there are many varieties, almost all of which are made from durum wheat , barley flour or a mix of the two: orecchiette, minchiareddhi (macaroni), sagne ‘ncannulate (twisted tagliatelle) and tria (chopped tagliatelle). The choice of its seasoning varies according to the consistency of the dough and the thread. Montinaro says: “To season pasta with fish sauces, I use a kind of pasta, which is ideal for our soup with potatoes, scampi, tabasco verde and cacio cavallo podolico.”. LOCAL TRADITIONS In Salento, Mediterranean tradition dictates that pasta and pulses, and meat and fish, alternate during the week: on odd-numbered days, housewives cook pulses and fish, on even-numbered days pasta and meat. On Sundays, the feast day, an exception is made. Fresh pasta with meat sauce is a must, as is cacio ricotta , a typical, slightly spicy, round, flattened, ivory-coloured Apulian cheese with a hard, compact consistency: a cheese of sheep origin, like most local dairy products, thanks to the widespread rearing of sheep and goats. During the winter, the most popular cheeses are pecorino and ricotta . Ricotta forte, also known as ricotta scante, has a unique taste because it tingles the palate. However, the paternity of creamy cheeses such as burrata , stracciatella , mozzarella dough dumplings stuffed with ricotta and caciocavalli podolici should be acknowledged to companies further north in the Lecce area, especially those in Brindisi and Bari. “For the caciocavalli podolici,’ says the chef from Alezio, ‘I go to a place in San Vito dei Normanni, which is part of the slow food community of the Alto Salento, but for the sheep’s ricotta, which I use mainly for desserts, in particular for my pear crumble, I get it from a farm in my town”. SALENTO CUISINE IS VERSATILE AND TRANSVERSAL It is customary for some starters, main courses or side dishes to be served as starters. Examples are meatballs with sauce , pitta di patate (a potato flatbread with onion , tomato , black olives, capers, pecorino cheese and oregano), parmigiana and the very Salento-style fava beans and chicory. Simple dishes that have been made using Salento’s authentic ingredients for centuries according to grandmothers’ recipes. To reinterpret them would be sacrilegious. The pulses of this region, which exports some varieties all over the world, are also well known. The Dwarf Pea and the Cuccìa Bean from Zollino , a municipality in the Grecìa Salentina region, where these two biodiversities are grown and are now included among the Traditional Agricultural Products (PAT) of Apulia . Tourists venturing into the Apulian countryside can discover an infinite variety of vegetables that are unknown or absent in other parts of Italy: paparinas , mugnuli , a type of broccoli, zanguni , a wild herb that goes well with broad beans, spunzali, not to be confused with leeks, and the savoury salicornia, sea asparagus that grows on the Adriatic and Ionian cliffs. Herbs that often accompany meat dishes such as turcineddhi , lamb entrails wrapped in their own intestines and grilled. Moniceddhi spritti , snails fried in oil with spices and chilli pepper, are another local delicacy. The moniceddhru is a type of snail that has been bred for centuries and is eaten in autumn when the molluscs leave their hibernation at the first hint of rain. Land also of the sea. There are some indigenous fish species such as red mullet and Gallipoli red shrimp . Mullet Gallipoli-style, dipped in pinzimonio and spiced breadcrumbs and grilled, is an unmissable delicacy. This recipe requires only mullet from Porto Cesareo, a fish almost exclusively found in the waters surrounding the Ionian town. “Especially in summer,” continues the chef of ‘Le Macare’, “my menu includes the fried anchovy pie with buffala, which we serve with our own mayonnaise, and the maricozza , an appetiser created by my son that is vaguely reminiscent of the Neapolitan maritozzo but made with gratinated mussels stuffed with rice, potatoes and mussels”. These waters, in the past violated by Greeks, Ottomans and Saracens, are also very rich in mussels and molluscs. Sea urchins , piluse mussels, black mussels , the aforementioned Gallipoli red shrimp and fasolari are often eaten raw, or dressed with lemon and extra virgin olive oil; a dish better known as ‘crudo di mare alla salentina’. You can’t end a lunch or dinner without dessert and in Salento there is a wide choice to choose from.