Try artichoke risotto, deep-fried artichokes, artichoke dip … just a few of my favourites.
Vegetables figure prominently in pasta dishes, soups and salads. So it’s not surprising for vegetarians to find a wide choice. Carciofi (artichokes), zucchini (courgettes), melanzane (aubergines), roasted peppers, fennel (finocchi), sedano (celery), rape (turnip greens), rucola (rocket) and the fava (broad bean), queen of beans, are used extensively. All imaginatively put together in a variety of dishes – you’ll be spoilt for choice.
Look out for bruschetta with anchovies and sharp ricotta, orecchiette (pasta ears) with tomato and rocket, or traditionally with rape. Great meat and regional fish dishes vie for your attention. And all can be accompanied with local wines, white, rose and red.
Most restaurants, from the humblest to the most up-market offer four courses: antipasti, primo piatto, secondo piatto and dolce. My appetite doesn’t; rise to the challenge, often we have a selection of antipasti followed by a dolce. Or antipasto and a primo piatto. Your personal choice will be accommodated.
On a typical menu you will find: for the primo piatto, home-made pasta made of durum flour, in many different varieties.
- Orecchiette – small pieces of ear-shaped pasta (literally “little ears”, it is typical to Puglia)
- Maccheronicini – kneaded with a kind of knitting needle and turned with the palm of the hand
- Sagne Ncannulate – strips of pasta, skilfully twisted
Served in so many ways, with fresh-home made tomato sauce, with local cheeses …. how do you decide?
Many of our local restaurants specialise in fish and seafood, hardly surprising when you remember the Salento is surrounded on three sides by the sea. In the bigger towns, most restaurants offer a choice of menus for the second course, from the earth or from the sea. Try fresh fish from the Ionian and Adriatic seas: typically sea bream (orata) , sea-bass(spigola or branzino), sword-fish (peace spada) cooked in a variety of ways, mullets from Porto Cesareo, baked in paper. The more adventurous can try sea urchins brought in by the fishermen, or cooked in the characteristic terra-cotta pot.
And to finish, spuma di cioccolato fondente, or panna-cotta, home-made of course, tiramisu or a fabulous gelato!