Arrival in southern Italy

It’s now been two weeks since arriving in Puglia from Greece. Along with living here in the white walled city of Ostuni, some eclectic reading has helped me get more of a feel for the region.

Southern Italy was once part of Magna Graecia, later it was part of the Byzantine Empire and it has had countless other invasions and occupations over the last 1000 years. Poverty and peasantry have defined it in relation to the more prosperous north.


The history is wretched, but a more positive story is emerging now: Puglia is now one of the most celebrated regions of Italian cuisine internationally and upmarket tourism is starting to take off.

Cathedral in the City of Taranto - once the prized capital city of Magna Graecia, now its old city has a more down-and-out feel

In terms of food, it is exceptional. In Crete I was learning more about the ‘Mediterranean diet’ which has helped define international dietary recommendations for the last half-century. There are some similar features between Cretan and Pugliese cuisine:

1.     A history of poverty has been hugely influential on the culture and cuisine

2.     The Pugliese are very partial to seafood

3.     Fresh fruit and vegetables are abundant and transparently grown 

4.     Olive oil is very significant in cooking  

5.     Superb regional cheeses (although some cows milk used here as well as goat and sheep)

6.     Delicious flatbread and pasta made from local durum wheat (this is more important here than in Crete)

7.     Pugliese produce and cuisine is highly-regarded throughout the country as a whole, as Cretan food was in Greece 

Insalata de mare at our local pescheria

My eclectic reading was not from careful research, it’s slightly random, but recommended if you’re visiting the region.

1.     Delizia: the Epic History of Italians and their Food by John Dickie – the history of Italy through its food. An impassioned, colourful but authoritative narrative on why food is so important to Italians. Highly recommend for pan-Italy/armchair travel.

2.     Head Over Heel: Seduced by Southern Italy by Chris Harrison – an Australian falls in love with a Pugliese woman and relocates to Italy.  Harrison is an intelligent, witty, yet unsentimental reporter of the eccentricities and complexities of Italian life and its characters. It gives a bit of insight into the north-south divide.

3.     By the Ionian Sea: Notes of a Ramble Through Southern Italy by George Gissing – I chose this because Gissing is one of my favourite Victorian novelists. I’m only browsing it, but there are some interesting snapshots of the region from 100 years ago, for example:

“Wonderful to observe the representative diner. He always seems to know exactly what his appetite demands; he addreses the waiter in a preliminary discourse, sketching out his meal, and then proceeds to fill in the minutiae… An ordinary bill of fare never satisfies him; he plays variations upon the themes suggested, divides or combines, introduces novelties of the most unexpected kind…. Throughout he grumbles, nothing is quite as it should be, and when the bill is presented he grumbles still more vigorously… in general these characteristics consist of a fundamental good humour.”

The lavish Basilica di Santa Croce in Lecce that took 100 years to complete

I’m also starting Carlo Levi’s ‘Christ Stopped at Eboli’ which is about the poverty of the south he experienced as a political prisoner from Genoa in 1939.

Thanks to the kindle for transforming my holiday reading. All of these books I’ve purchased online in seconds having been tipped off about them browsing online or in a guidebook. I would never have followed up/tracked down otherwise. 

Best food moment: what I ate on that first day in Puglia...

Hot focaccia topped with thin potato slices and rosemary or studded with tomatoes and olives.

Panino con polpo – barbequed octopus drizzled with lemon juice and olive oil and stuffed into a white roll at the fish restaurant on the corner of the street.

Toasted almond gelato

A whole creamy burrata cheese with crisp chewy white rolls, soft in the inside and the sweetest brightest cherry tomatoes off the vine. 

Tomatoes, bread and burrata cheese

Sweet golden flesh peaches for dessert.