Good forks: this is the post for you! Here's what to taste in Lecce to avoid being hungry at any time of the day.
When I read the title of this article to write: Lecce, the typical dishes of the Salento tradition - I thought it would be child's play, a homework to be done in 10 minutes flat.
Being a good fork, a lover of my land but with an explorer spirit, talking about traditional Salento dishes should be easy, but it is terribly difficult.
As I usually do, I took a blank sheet and started sketching something before putting myself in front of the Mac to write digitally.
The list of typical dishes of the Salento tradition has become a list of delicacies, which would need an encyclopedia to name them all. And as it should be, I got hungry.
So I rearranged my thoughts and decided to imagine the day of a tourist around Salento, organizing the various meals.
The breakfast
As soon as you wake up you have to start with the right charge. Coffee is usually accompanied by pasticciotto, a shortcrust pastry filled with custard, sometimes with the addition of a sour cherry.
Seasonal breakfast variants include coffee on ice with almond milk in summer and zeppole as a variant of pasticciotto in the pre-Easter period.
The lunch
Sitting at the table for lunch, you need to accumulate energy for the rest of the day. In fact, lunch is the main meal.
So off with a nice dish of ciciri and tria, which at first impression might seem like a dish of pasta and chickpeas (ciciri) but which actually hides much more.
The "tria" is in fact a type of hand made pasta mixing only water and flour. To give an extra boost to the plate we think the frizzuli, small pieces of pasta that instead of ending up in hot water are fried in olive oil.
If you want something lighter, so to speak, you can orient yourself on Fae nette and cicureddhe, a puree of broad beans with wild chicory.
The beans, peeled and cleaned, are soaked overnight and then cooked in water until they take on a creamy consistency. The chicories, on the other hand, are boiled and sautéed with oil, onion and garlic. To complete the dish, fried croutons and a drizzle of raw olive oil.
Moving on to the latter, I propose two, one of meat and one of fish, which however have something in common.
I pieces of horse with sauce they are a dish to taste. Horse meat cooked in special terracotta pots, pignata, with garlic, celery, onion, tomato sauce (the most traditionalists also add chilli).
To be eaten at the table making the shoe or in a sandwich during a summer festival, the incredible flavor does not change.
The same terracotta pot can also be used to prepare another dish, lu purpu alla pignata, an octopus that is cooked first with oil and garlic, blended with white wine, to which cherry tomatoes, bay leaf and peppercorns are then added.
The water is added gradually until the octopus softens.
La cena
For dinner we usually stay lighter, with grilled meat or fish.
Speaking of meat, embers and salento, however, i come to mind turcinieddhri o gnummareddhi o mboti (depending on the area of Salento where you are). If pronouncing their name may seem difficult, I assure you that once you have tasted them you will be looking forward to order them again.
It is rolls with various parts of the lamb entrails, such as liver, lung, heart and spleen rolled with lamb gut. Strong flavors, but typical of the Salento tradition.
During a holiday in Salento, however, you cannot fail to taste them the frisa o the puccia.
The frisa is typically summer and consists of a tarallo cooked in a wood oven, split in half horizontally and put back in the oven to be baked.
It exists in many variations, of durum wheat, barley, wholemeal but the preparation is the same for everyone and includes spanning ritual, immersion in cold water of the frisa for a few seconds before dressing it.
For the dressing, tradition provides: tomato, oil, salt, black olives but here too there are variations. It is eaten strictly with the hands, breaking the frisa and collecting the seasoning.
The puccia is a particular sandwich, in which various elements are added that characterize the puccia itself. So we have the puccia with olives, black or green, the puccia with cherry tomatoes, with cherry tomatoes and onion, with turnips or chicory.
A variant served in pizzerias or fast food is that of sandwich made with pizza dough and then stuffed with cold cuts or meat.
Another dish suitable for dinner is the pitta or cake. Pitta is a potato and flour flan; the focaccia is traditionally stuffed with tomato, onion, capers and olives.
The snack
But what if a sudden hunger attack comes in mid-morning or in the afternoon?
The solution is called rustic and you can find it everywhere, from the bakery, to the bar to the pastry shop.
It is not a real dish, in fact it is usually eaten standing up or while walking.
Is composed by two discs of puff pastry superimposed with inside, bechamel, mozzarella, tomato, pepper and nutmeg. To be cooked in the oven after a brush of egg yolk.
These are just some of the typical dishes of the Salento tradition, to try these and others that I have not listed all that remains is to visit some restaurant or farm.
If you have already tried the typical Salento cuisine, what did you like? Let me know in the comments.
