Food Lover's Odyssey

Seafood and More with Chef Lino at Ristorante Donna Lisa

 

I've written a lot about the pasta, the many vegetable dishes, and cheese of Puglia, but seafood is as big a part of Pugliese cuisine as those other dishes.  The heel of Italy's boot, the region of Puglia is a smaller peninsula of the larger peninsula that is the bel paese.  Salento is surrounded by water three sides, and the freshest fish and shellfish are only minutes away from any city. I spent an afternoon in the kitchen of, Ristorante Donna Lisa, where seafood dishes are their specialty. We watched the chef, Lino, cook up many of the restaurant's dishes, and sampled them, too.

 

Chef Lino at the stove

It's not all seafood, vegetarian and meat dishes are also on a long menu that consists of 30 primi piatti (pasta and risotto dishes), 20 secondi (main dishes), antipasti galore and a wine list that boasts over 100 wines, coming not only from Puglia but other parts of Italy and a few from France.

The Salento city of Maglie, as my friend Ylenia explained it, is the most chicest in all of Puglia. Both men and women are clad head to high-heeled toe in designer names, Italian designers that is. I watched fashionistas glide over the city's cobblestone and uneven walkways in, men in suits and shiny leather shoes and stiletto-heeled women in shades of black and grey. Not only a city for the stylish, Maglie is a food city, host to one of the most popular food & wine festivals in Salento, the Mercantino del Gusto every August. 

Not far from the piazza where the Mercantino del Gusto is held is the restaurant. The entrance is the 5th century courtyard of Leccese stone, that also doubles as the outdoor dining area.  The interior dining area is adorned in a contemporary palette of black, grey and white. Even the breakfast "caffetteria," a not-so traditional Italian coffee bar, has a crystal chandelier.

 

Courtyard dining at Donna Lisa

The indoor dining area at Donna Lisa

The hostess, Anna Lisa and chef Lino's daughter

 

It's a family-run restaurant that Chef Lino opened 4 years ago, after having worked at another restaurant for 20 years. His son, Vincenzo, is the main waiter and Anna Lisa, his daughter, the hostess. Chef Lino handles all orders for first and second courses and the antipasti plates that are cooked to order.  Besides his son and daughter, he had two ladies in the back that help with prep, plating, and dish washing. A small crew for the 100 cover restaurant, yet I was the only person frantic in the back of the kitchen, as I observed lunch service and scribbled down notes and between samples.

It was a live cooking demonstration of sorts, as we watched him prepare dish after dish, as the orders came in. As he cooked he explained ingredients that made up each dish and peppered in a few of his cooking tips as side notes.  One being that he liked to cook the pasta in water for only about 4 minutes, then added it to the sauce to let it finish cooking there. This allows the pasta to take on the flavor of the sauce. He made a penne pasta with radicchio and gorgonzola, explaining that the two strong flavors - the bitterness of the radicchio and the sharpness of the cheese - balance each other out. (This was the second time I'd seen radicchio paired with a strong cheese.)

 

There was antipasti galore that flew out of the kitchen - shellfish, fried sarde and other small fish, marinated anchovies, succulent salami platters, paper thin slices of grilled vegetables just to name a few. If you can't choose just one, they offer a selection of antipasti, wheeled out to your table on a fancy white cart. We tasted so many that it was impossible to get through three courses.  One of my favorites was the stuffed and fried mussels.  A cheese and herb stuffing surround the quickly fried mussels. The recipe for these will be in another post, coming soon.

 

The antipasti cart

Selection of salumi

Calamaretti Fritti (Fried miniature calamari)

 

A delicious stuffed and fried mussel

 

 

 

The menu at Donna Lisa includes 30 primi piatti, some a basic as a popular paccheri with julienned vegetables, one of the pasta dishes we tasted, and others more exotic like a risotto with saffron and gold leaf or another risotto with rose petals. Chef Lino made for us one of the seafood fish recipes that can only be found in Salento. It's made with gamberoni testa viola (a violet-headed large shrimp) from the fishing village of Gallipoli.   

 

Paccheri with sauteed  Julienne vegetables

Penne with radicchio and gorgonzola cheese

Gamberoni Testa Viola (Violet head shrimp) from Gallipoli used in our pasta dish

Spaghetti con gamberoni testa viola

 

 

We had no room for a secondo (main dish), but Donna Lisa offers 20 different secondi on their menu.  Grilled and fried fish makes up the majority of those 20. One non-fish dish that I found interesting was a fillet of steak cooked in the local Negromaro wine with onions. 

Steak in a Negromaro & onion sauce     ~     and     ~      Grilled Swordfish

 

If you're in Salento and want to taste some of the freshest fish cooked both simply and creatively, I suggest you visit Ristorante Donna Lisa.  You can see more of the restaurant and hear Anna Lisa talk about the restaurant (in Italian) in this video.

 

You can savor the seafood and other flavors of Salento like these on this dream trip:  Food and Wine Lover's Culinary Journey in Puglia!

 

Ristorante Donna Lisa
Via Ospedale
73024 Maglie
Phone: +39 0836 311 865

Open 7 days a week for breakfast, lunch and dinner, except Sunday for dinner.

The menu is a la carte, but a three-course meal averages 40 euros, without wine.

 

 

 

 

Related Posts:

Orecchiette and Salentine Breads - Cooking with Mamma Giulia in Salento

Under the Salento Sun - The Masserie of Salento

Wedding in Puglia

Cheese in Puglia - Making and Eating Fresh Cheese in Salento

Artisanal Cheese at Masseria CinqueSanti in Puglia

Orecchiette with Cauliflower, Sausage & Cheese - Cooking with Mamma Mariantonietta

Tradtional Salentine Dishes at Locanda Rivoli in Lecce

Lecce: The Baroque Beauty of Puglia

The Art of Making Pasta by Hand: A Pugliese Pasta Lesson with Nonna Vata

The Pastries of Lecce with Pastry Chef Luca Capilungo

Olivotto: The Sweet Side of Olives

Zeppole di San Giuseppe

Pugliese Pasta Dish: Sagne Ncannulate con Sugo Schiattariciati

Classic Salentino Cuisine Reinvented at Sette di Sette in Lecce

Tour of Masseria L'Astore and its Frantoio Ipogeo in Salento

Lunch Salento Style at Cantine Menhir

Sagne Ncannulate Schiattariciati - Pugliese Pasta with Schiattariciati Tomato Sauce

The Dish from Puglia: Ricci di Mare (sea urchins) from Porto Badisco

The Dish from Puglia: Friselle with Tomatoes

The Dish from Lecce: Rustico Leccese

Christmas Desserts in Salento

Orecchiette with Cauliflower and Sausage - Cooking with Mariantonietta in Salento

 

For many of us, our image of an Italian mother is one of a sweet, petite, slightly rounded woman, apron tied around her waist and flour always under her fingernails. We see her spending most of her day in the kitchen making pasta by hand and cooking up something wonderful for her family and/or guests whom she dotes on endlessly. It is possible that these women exist, but get in mamma's way at the supermarket and you'll see mamma and nonna in a whole new light. The elbow jab to the ribs or rolly-cart to the shins will quickly shake away any misconception you have of a sweet & frail mamma.  I met up with Italian mamma, Mariantonietta, for a day of food shopping and a Pugliese cooking lesson. 

Now Mariantonietta can cook, and it's clear she knows her way around a kitchen. She owns a seaside restaurant in Salento, is part-owner of Masseria Provenzani and is responsible for organizing many food and wine events in the area and throughout Italy. Obviously, this bustling business woman is too busy to be in the kitchen all day, yet she still insists on eating tasty, nutritious Italian meals. Her motto is that an easy and elegant meal should take no longer than an hour to prepare.  After a day "out in the fields" meeting local farmers, olive oil producers and visiting a wine cooperative, we cooked up a delicious four-course dinner full of the flavors of Puglia. And we did it in less than an hour.

 

Quintessential Italian Table - Perfectly set with tablecloth and flowers

Mariantonietta in her kitchen

 

That morning we spent exploring Leverano, an area in Salento rich in agriculture. We visited a tomato grower who grows 150 varieties of tomatoes, tasted olive oil from a olive oil cooperative and saw wine being made at a cooperative where around 1200 small producers combine their resources to make wine and olive oil. Talk about fresh, the produce we purchased had just been harvested that morning. We even met with a flower grower in the area and picked up flowers for the table.

We brought our purchases back to Mariantonietta's kitchen.  Not only is her kitchen spacious and colorful, decorated with all sorts of photos, tiles and ceramics, but it's also modern and well-equipped. At first look it might seem that the pots and kitchen utensils were only for decoration, but they were hung strategically, which allowed for quick and easy retrieval when cooking. It wasn't all work in the kitchen either. In between chatter, photo breaks, and plenty of wine (the wine was a Negroamaro from the Leverano Wine Coopertive), we put together a fabulous meal, where local vegetables and ingredients were the stars.

 

 

Although she never seemed rushed, Mariantonietta was swift in the kitchen. She moved from sink to prep area to stove like a ballerina, each motion seemingly choreographed and practiced many times before. Local and seasonal vegetables were key to making this meal. Mariantonietta pointed out that the fresher the vegetables are, the quicker they cook and the tastier they are. And if you use dried pasta, which we did, most Italian pasta dishes are quite quick and easy to make. With five ingredients or less, you can make a wonderful dish. Our meal was the essence of Italian cooking, simple yet so full of flavor because Mariantonietta let the unadulterated quality and freshness of the ingredients shine.

 

 

 

We started with antipasti of local salumi and cheese. We also had bruschetta made with local tomatoes, the famous bread from Altamura and olive oil from the Leverano Oil Cooperative. 

 

 

 

The primo piatto was a gorgeous plate of orecchiette with cauliflower, sausage and cheese. The mild flavor of the cauliflower blended well with the bold taste of the sausage, and the cheese, not too much, brought a perfect creaminess to the entire dish.

 

 

Using extras from the pasta dish, we made a secondo of grilled sausage links and a contorno (side dish) of cauliflower gratin.  That wasn't all.  Two more contorni rounded out the meal: the classic dish peperonata, bell peppers, tomatoes and garlic slowly cooked in olive oil. We also had the famous Pugliese vegetable cime di rapa (broccoli rabe), again boiled and dressed with olive oil.

 

 

 

Dried figs with an almond inside (a Salento specialty), walnuts and limoncello were dessert.

 

 

Mariantonietta and I taking a cafe break in Porto Cesareo, near Leverano

 

The day was much more than a cooking lesson. I was able to see exactly from where the produce we purchased came, meet those producers - the many that get their hands dirty so we can eat well, and learn a little about agricultural life in Salento. Not only that, I made a new friend in Mariantonietta. Whenever I make this dish (which I have many times because it's so easy to make), I think of her, cooking and eating together, and the people of Leverano. (More on Leverano and its producers coming in another post.)  Below is the recipe for orecchiette with cauliflower,sausage and cheese based on Mariantonietta's recipe.  She used cacioricotta cheese, which is hard for me to find in California, but any semi-soft, not too strong cheese will do.

 

 

 

 

 

Orecchiette with Cauliflower, Sausage and Cheese
(Serves 4 as a main course, 6 as a primo piatto)
 

1 large head of cauliflower, cut into florets
About 1 tablespoon salt
1/3 cup olive oil
12 ounces of Italian sausage (3-4 links)*
1 pound orecchiette or other small dried pasta (i.e. mezzi rigatoni or conchiglie/small shells)
About 8 ounces cheese, grated or diced (cacioricotta, pecorino)
Freshly grated black pepper, to taste

Place the cauliflower florets in a large pot and add water about half way up the pot and the salt.  Bring the water to boil and cook just until the cauliflower are al dente.  Remove the cauliflower and drain.  Use this water to cook the pasta, adding more water and salt if necessary. 

In a large saute pan, add the olive oil and sausage, and cook the sausauge.

When the sausage is almost done, cook the pasta for only four minutes, then drain.  Save the pasta water.  Add the drained pasta to the sausage and stir through to coat the pasta with the olive oil and "toast" it, for 2-3 minutes.  Add the cauliflower and 2 or 3 ladles of pasta water. Cook a few minutes more until pasta is al dente.  Remove from the heat, add the cheese and stir in until the cheese has melted creating a creamy finish.  Garnish with freshly ground black pepper and serve. Buon Appetito! 

*Note: When I recreate this dish, I use 12 ounces of sausage out of the casing, using 6 ounces of sweet/mild sausage and 6 ounces of spicy sausage.

 

 

Join me and cook with Italian mamme, traditional and modern, meet local food purveyors and many other great people of Salento on this Food & Wine Lover's Culinary Tour of Puglia.

 

Mariantonietta and Michael (of YLTours)

 

 

Related Posts:

Making Orecchiette and Salentine Breads - Cooking with Mamma Giulia in Salento

Artisanal Cheese at Masseria CinqueSanti in Puglia

The Art of Making Pasta by Hand: A Pugliese Pasta Lesson with Nonna Vata

Cheese in Puglia - Making and Eating Fresh Cheese in Salento

The Pastries of Lecce with Pastry Chef Luca Capilungo

Zeppole di San Giuseppe

Wedding in Puglia

Traditional Salentine Dishes at Locanda Rivoli in Lecce

Lecce: The Baroque Beauty of Puglia

Pugliese Pasta Dish: Sagne Ncannulate con Sugo Schiattariciati

Classic Salentino Cuisine Reinvented at Sette di Sette in Lecce

Tour of Masseria L'Astore and its Frantoio Ipogeo in Salento

Lunch Salento Style at Cantine Menhir

Shopping and Eating Local in Italy - Farmers' Market in Lecce

Sagne Ncannulate Schiattariciati - Pugliese Pasta with Schiattariciati Tomato Sauce

The Dish from Lecce: Rustico Leccese

The Dish from Puglia: Ricci di Mare (sea urchins) from Porto Badisco

This Dish from Puglia: Friselle

Christmas Around Italy - Christmas Desserts in Salento

Under the Salento Sun - The Masserie of Puglia

 

Masserie (plural for the singular masseria) are the ancient fortified farmhouses popping up in the Puglia countryside.  They are as much a symbol of the Puglia as are the endless olive groves and the trulli.  You can see their high stone walls springing up through the olive groves as you drive through the region.  Most of them were built between the 14^th and 18^th centuries. The fortifications were built to protect against invasions by pirates and the Turks, but they were also living communities that housed families of the working farmers, and were like little cities. They have courtyards, communal gathering spaces and some even have small churches within the confines of the walls. 

Many of the masserie were abandoned in the late 19^th and 20^th century.  Similar to the way old villas have been restored in Tuscany, buying and restoring these masserie has been quite popular. Many have been restored into luxurious five-star hotels, boutique bed and breakfasts or places that hold special events. 

 

Masseria Provenzani, (pictured above) is one of those masserie that have been restored to a boutique accomodations.  Surrounded by olive groves and gardens, the masseria is only 1 km from the Adriatic Sea and a 15 minute drive to Lecce, Salento's capital city.  Styled in a rustic chic, the grounds are full of climbing bouganvillea, other flowers, a vegetable garden, olive trees and a gorgeous pool.  It is where we'll be staying during our Food & Wine Lover's Culinary Tour.  The masseria's large and country kitchen is where Mamma Giulia cooks for the guests and holds her cooking lessons.

 

Built in the same manner as the famous trulli of Puglia, this pajara has been restored to one of the rooms at Masseria Provenzani 

 

Masseria San Lorenzo, built in various stages during the 1500s, was restored using the Leccese stone from the quarry on its grounds.  Now the masseria hosts special events, most notably wedding receptions. The spacious and lush outdoor gardens include a stream, pergolas, palm trees, olive trees and other fruit trees.

 

 

 

Other masserie have been restored to working order.  On the working masserie, you can find working vineyards, animals whose milk make creamy Salento cheese, fields full of vegetables and fruit, and of course, olive groves.  Below many of the masserie that produced olive oil hundreds of years ago, there are ancient underground oil mills, called frantoio ipogeo in Italian. 

We toured the wine and olive oil producing L’Astore Masseria, one of the first masserie to be restored. Its underground olive mill, originally built in the 1700s was one of the bigger mills of the area.  Both ingenious and absurd, these mills were carved out of the stone under the earth.  The harvesters dropped the olives into specified holes in the ground.  They fell through the holes and into rooms built to store the olives.  Great stone mills pushed by animals crushed the olives, and then moved them to the olive pressing area. Ingenious and efficient, right? The absurd part: Both the animals and the workers lived underground together, albeit in different rooms, during the entire oil-making season.

 

Modern-day underground wine cellar at L'Astore built next to its Frantoio Ipogeo

 

 

This week and next week is dedicated to a "Taste of Puglia." Almost daily I'll have a post for you from Puglia. Like this post, the others will include little tastes of Puglia and some of the things we'll see, do and taste on this Food & Wine Lover's Culinary Tour in Puglia.  The trip includes an 8-night stay at the gorgeous Masseria Provenzani, cooking lessions at the masseria with Mamma Giulia and visits to other masserie in the area. 

Next up in the Taste of Puglia series: recipe for Zeppole di San Giuseppe

 

Masseria Provenzani
Strada Provinciale 236
Via Provenzani No. 102
I-73100 Casalabate (LE)
Email: info@masseriaprovenzani.com
Phone: +39.0832.389140

Masseria San Lorenzo
Via Francesco Flora, 1
73100 Lecce
Phone: +39 333 333 6045

L’Astore Masseria
Via G. DiVittorio
73020 Cutrofiano (Lecce)
Phone: +39 0836 54 2020
Email:  info@lastoremasseria.it

*Guided visits and tastings are available by appointment only

 

Related Posts:

Making Orecchiette and Salentine Breads - Cooking with Mamma Giulia in Salento

Artisanal Cheese at Masseria CinqueSanti in Puglia

The Art of Making Pasta by Hand: A Pugliese Pasta Lesson with Nonna Vata

Cheese in Puglia - Making and Eating Fresh Cheese in Salento

The Pastries of Lecce with Pastry Chef Luca Capilungo

Zeppole di San Giuseppe

Wedding in Puglia

Traditional Salentine Dishes at Locanda Rivoli in Lecce

Lecce: The Baroque Beauty of Puglia

Pugliese Pasta Dish: Sagne Ncannulate con Sugo Schiattariciati

Classic Salentino Cuisine Reinvented at Sette di Sette in Lecce

Tour of Masseria L'Astore and its Frantoio Ipogeo in Salento

Lunch Salento Style at Cantine Menhir

Shopping and Eating Local in Italy - Farmers' Market in Lecce

Sagne Ncannulate Schiattariciati - Pugliese Pasta with Schiattariciati Tomato Sauce

The Dish from Lecce: Rustico Leccese

The Dish from Puglia: Ricci di Mare (sea urchins) from Porto Badisco

This Dish from Puglia: Friselle

Christmas Around Italy - Christmas Desserts in Salento

 

Orecchiette and Salentine Breads - Cooking with Mamma Giulia

 

Mamma Giulia is in charge of all kitchen goings-on at Masseria Provenzani.  She starts early each morning preparing breakfast for the masseria's guests.  Guests wake to scents of bread, brioche and sometimes a crostata, or two.  The communal breakfast table is full of  Mamma Giulia's baked goods and homemade jams.  And the beverages add to the intoxicating aromas wafting through the air; there's espresso, cappucino or hot chocolate to wash down the delicious breads.

We met up with Mamma Giulia as she was clearing the breakfast table, just in time to taste some of the leftovers - a creamy ricotta crostata and a cherry one.  Small in stature with a soft voice to match, she teaches Pugliese homecooking in the masseria's rustic kitchen.  She gathered us around the marble island in the center of the kitchen.  We were surrounded by pans, utensils and peperoncini hanging from three walls.  The fourth wall consisted of ceiling-to-floor glass windows that looked out onto the masseria's lush gardens.  Breads of Salento and orecchiette pasta were on the menu for our day's cooking lesson.

 

Making Salentine Breads

Mamma Giulia speaks only Italian. Although Ylenia was there to translate, the way Mamma Giulia spoke slowly and carefully demonstrated each step, made her easy to understand, even for the non-Italian speaker.  Missteps on our part were treated with gentle corrections. She would come next to us and correct us by quietly showing the correct way to do it. We combined flour, yeast, water and salt to make bread dough.  She had quantities for flour, yeast and salt, but insisted that there was no exact measurement for the water. "The amount of water needed depends on the temperature, humidity and the flour itself.  You know how much water you need by the feel of the dough." She told us.

From the dough, we made three types of bread.  Focaccia Salentina is Salento's version of a calzone.  Thin layers of focaccia bread sandwich a filling.  While the dough was rising, we sauteed onions and tomatoes for our filling, but Mamma Giulia pointed out that we could fill the focaccia with anything we'd like.  Rollng the dough out fairly thinly, we placed it in a round pan, added the filling and folded over the other half of the dough to cover.

We also made puccie (plural for puccia). Puccie are round bread rolls that come in two sizes; rounds that are about six inches in diameter or small golfball-sized rounds.  Whole unpitted olives are kneaded into the dough, and usually so are tomatoes giving the bread an orange hue.  Lastly, we made a traditional focaccia topped with tomatoes and oregano. 

 

 



Focaccia Salentina stuffed with onions & tomatoes and traditional focaccia with tomatoes & oregano

Le Puccie - Ready for the oven

 

 

Making Orecchiette

Orecchiette (meaning little ears) is the quintessential pasta of Puglia.  I think it's a requirement of all Pugliese mamme to master the art of making orecchiette by hand because every Pugliese mamma who I've seen make these, makes it look easy.  Flipping the curled pasta over your thumb to create the little ears is no easy task.  Mamma Giulia rolled the dough out into a long snake-like strip.  With what seemed like one continuous motion, she cut a piece from the dough, rolled a knife over the dough, and turned the curled piece of dough over her thumb to form the orecchiette.  One after the other, she quickly turned out at least 10 little ears to my one, but we eventually had enough for our lunch.

Mamma Giulia made a simple tomato sauce to dress the orecchiette.  She slowly heated garlic in olive oil, Neapolitan style, then added the tomatoes.  The orecchiette held the tomatoe sauce nicely.

Our "small" afternoon meal included an antipasti of the various cheeses we had picked up earlier at Masseria CinqueSanti, and the food we had made with Mamma Giulia; the orecchiette with a garlic tomato sauce and our three types of bread. For dessert, we had a few more pieces of the crostata left from earlier that morning.  Mamma Giulia's recipe for the orecchiette and the sauce is below.  I'll be back next week with the recipe for Focaccia Salentino.

   

 

 

 

 

Mamma Giulia's Handmade Orecchiette with Garlic Tomato Sauce
 
Serves 4


For the Pasta:

1 pound (450 grams) semolina flour
About ½ cup tepid water*

*Mamma Giulia would not give an exact measurement on the water, but this is a good starting point

For the Sauce:

6 to 8 cloves garlic with skins left on
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
Two 28 ounce cans San Marzano tomatoes
Salt, to taste

Grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese for the garnish

 

To make the pasta:

With the flour, make a well.  Add half of the water to the center of the well, and slowly mix the flour into the center of the well with your hands.  Add more water as necessary until the dough comes together.  It should not be sticky but moist and soft.  Knead for a few minutes until all the flour and water combine to make a smooth dough.  Cover with plastic wrap and let rest for 30 minutes.

To make the orecchiette, roll the dough out into a long snake-like strip about 1/4 inch in diameter.  Cut a strip about 1/2 inches long.  With a butter knife (one that has teeth, but dull teeth), roll the tooth side of the knife down and over the cut strip of pasta.  This will form a rolled piece of dough, also known as cavatelli.  Turn the curved piece of dough over your thumb to form the little ear.  Set aside and repeat until you've used all the dough.

To make the sauce: On low heat, slowly heat the garlic and olive oil in a sauce pot.  Once the garlic is toasted, a golden color, add the tomatoes and salt.  Bring the sauce to a boil, then lower to a simmer.  Cook for about 20 minutes, until the sauce is a consistency you want.  Taste and adjust for seasoning. You can remove the garlic cloves, which will have remained whole, from the sauce before serving.

Cook the orecchiette in well salted boiling water until the pasta is al dente.  Dress with the tomato sauce and top with grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. Buon Appetito!

 

 

 

This week and next week is dedicated to a "Taste Puglia." Almost daily I'll have a post for you from Puglia. Like this post, the others will include little tastes of Puglia and some of the things we'll see, do and taste on this Food & Wine Lover's Culinary Tour in Puglia.  The trip includes an 8-night stay at the gorgeous Masseria Provenzani and cooking lessions with Mamma Giulia. 

 

This post is part of Wanderfood Wednesdays  - Travelers and food lovers share their culinary travels from around the world.

 

Related Posts:

The Art of Making Pasta by Hand: A Pugliese Pasta Lesson with Nonna Vata

Cheese in Puglia - Making and Eating Fresh Cheese in Salento

The Pastries of Lecce with Pastry Chef Luca Capilungo

Wedding in Puglia

Traditional Salentine Dishes at Locanda Rivoli in Lecce

Lecce: The Baroque Beauty of Puglia

Pugliese Pasta Dish: Sagne Ncannulate con Sugo Schiattariciati

Classic Salentino Cuisine Reinvented at Sette di Sette in Lecce

Tour of Masseria L'Astore and its Frantoio Ipogeo in Salento

Lunch Salento Style at Cantine Menhir

Shopping and Eating Local in Italy - Farmers' Market in Lecce

Sagne Ncannulate Schiattariciati - Pugliese Pasta with Schiattariciati Tomato Sauce

The Dish from Lecce: Rustico Leccese

The Dish from Puglia: Ricci di Mare (sea urchins) from Porto Badisco

This Dish from Puglia: Friselle

Christmas Around Italy - Christmas Desserts in Salento

Olivotto - The Sweet Side of Olives

 

Olives, and especially olive oil, play a huge part in Italian cuisine.  That's on the savory side.  I have to admit that except for making cakes with olive oil, olives and pastries were a combination I had never thought of before.  That was until my friends from Salento introduced me to Massimo and Andrea who have invented a sweet product using the ubiquitous Pugliese olives. The product is Olivotto, made with the black cellina olives that grow in the Salento region.

Like most great culinary inventions or recipes, Olivotto came about by accident.  Massimo's young son had stained his hands from the olive's juice. His son mistook the purple stain as one from amarena (dark sour cherries, usually preserved in a sugar syrup).  That's when a light went on in Massimo.  Surrounded in Salento by almost endless groves of olive trees (Puglia produces over 40% of Italy's olive oil), yet no one had ever thought of using this fruit for pastry making.  Massimo and his friend Andrea, who was then the chef for the restaurant at the swanky Patria Palace Hotel in Lecce, put there heads together to create Olivotto.   

 

Andrea Serravezza and Massimo Gaetani - The creators of Olivotto

Olivotto comes in three variations. The crema dolce, meaning sweet cream, can be used as a base flavor in pastry making.  Similarly to how one uses other fruits, nuts and chocolate, one would use it to flavor creams (pastry, Bavarian, Anglese, Chantilly, etc), doughs, cakes, sauces, candies and gelato, just to name a few.  The dressing could be a finishing touch to dress desserts, used like a marmelade in a crostata or cookie, in chocolate making, and even paired with cheese.  Finally there is the Perle Noire (black pearl). The black pearls are whole, pitted olives in a sweet syrup.  They could dress the top of any Olivotto dessert beautifully, or stud the inside of breads, brioche and cakes. 

Make no mistake, all three variations are sweet, not overly, but they are sweet and produced with natural ingredients.  The dressing is the sweetest of the three. The dark purple color is also natural and brings an interesting color to all pastries Olivotto touches.  In fact, the Cellina olive is the only olive that is black naturally; the others turn black due to chemical oxidation.  Each of the desserts we tried had light olive notes throughout. You taste the savory side of the olive at the finish; something that balances things nicely.

 

We met Massimo and Andrea at Bar Castello in the Grecia Salentina (a part of Salento where a Greek dialect is still spoken and street and store signs are in both Greek and Italian).  Angelo, the chef and owner of Bar Castello was the first person in Salento to offer Olivotto products and use the products in his pastries.  In the bar's kitchen the talented pastry cooks, Vladimiro & Carmin, wowed us by making one delicious dessert after another with Olivotto.

 

 

Angelo Anchora of Bar Castello

 

They made the region's famous pasticciotto pastry with pastry cream flavored with Olivotto - giving it a bright purple color.  Instead of chocolate covered cherries, we tasted chocolate covered olives; the dressing and a black pearl were covered in chocolate.  There was purple pandolivotto - panettone made with the crema dolce and studded with the black pearl olives.  I don't normally like panettone.  I find it too dry, but the Olivotto cream gave the cake a moister texture that changed my mind about the Italian Christmas bread.  They flavored marzipan and cream chantilly with Olivotto. And of course, there was gelato flavored with Olivotto. 

 

Pastries and chocolates with Olivotto

 

Pasticciotti filled with Olivotto flavored pastry cream

 

Olivotto gelato

 

Fruit Crostata - one of the fruit toppings is the Olivotto Perle Noire

 

Crostata filled with Olivotto dressing and topped with the Perle Noire

 

Marzipan biscotti (known as quaresimali) filled with Olivotto dressing and Perle Noire

 

Pastry cooks at Bar Castello - Vladimiro and Carmin - working with Olivotto, pastries & chocolate

 

 

In Salento, Olivotto is already a popular name, and you can find it in many pastry shops, food shops, and at Lecce's Farmers' Market.  Chef Heinz Beck is using Olivotto at the three-Michelin starred Restaurant La Pergola in Rome.  You can find Olivotto in London, at Harrod's, and at some stores in France.  Rumor has it that Pierre Herme in Paris might be baking up something with Olivotto - maybe a macaron/Olivotto combination. Massimo and Andrea are still looking for distribution in the U.S., where I think the Pandolivotto would be a huge hit, especially around Christmas.  One thing is certain, Olivotto makes my must-buy list for foodie souvenirs from Salento.

Join me for a Food & Wine Lover's Culinary Journey in Puglia where we'll taste Olivotto and many more local specialties!

 

Pandiolivotto - Olivotto flavored panettone (photo courtesy Olivotto)

 

 

Olivotto
Email: info@olivottocreme.it
Phone:  +39 0836 572304

Bar Castello
4 V. Ferrovia
73222 Corigliano d’Otranto
Phone: +39 0836 471098

 

 

Related Posts:

The Pastries of Lecce with Pastry Chef Luca Capilungo

The Art of Making Pasta by Hand: A Pugliese Pasta Lesson with Nonna Vata

Cheese in Puglia - Making and Eating Fresh Cheese in Salento

Wedding in Puglia

Traditional Salentine Dishes at Locanda Rivoli in Lecce

Lecce: The Baroque Beauty of Puglia

Pugliese Pasta Dish: Sagne Ncannulate con Sugo Schiattariciati

Classic Salentino Cuisine Reinvented at Sette di Sette in Lecce

Tour of Masseria L'Astore and its Frantoio Ipogeo in Salento

Lunch Salento Style at Cantine Menhir

Artisinal Cheese at Masseria CinqueSanti in Puglia

Shopping and Eating Local in Italy - Farmers' Market in Lecce

Sagne Ncannulate Schiattariciati - Pugliese Pasta with Schiattariciati Tomato Sauce

The Dish from Lecce: Rustico Leccese

Christmas Around Italy - Christmas Desserts in Salento

Artisanal Cheese from Masseria CinqueSanti in Puglia

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In the Salento countryside, a few kilometers from the city of Lecce and along a stretch of road filled with olive trees (common landscape for this region) my friend Ylenia brought me to the sprawling farmhouse of Masseria CinqueSanti. We were greeted with hugs and cheek kisses from Lina; she's the third generation of female cheesemakers on this farm.  We were there for a special ricotta making demonstration.  It was special not only because we got to taste samples of the freshly made ricotta minutes after it was made - a must for every cheese lover before they die - but the ricotta from the demonstration was ours to take with us!

Using some of the whey that remained from the morning's cheesemaking, they added salt, a small cupful more of milk, and reheated the whey. (This is how ricotta gets its name; ricotta means recooked in Italian).  With the heat and gentle stirring motion of the cheesemaker, the whey curdled ever so slightly to make the oh so creamy ricotta.  As the ricotta drained in baskets, we could hardly wait for it to cool down enough to taste it. It was worth the wait, the four of us dipped our little spoons in again and again in the little tasting bowls Lina gave us. 

 

 

 

 

After the ricotta tasting, I met Nonna Anna, Lina's mother. She had stayed quiet and in the background while Lina explained the stages of ricotta making, and we hadn't even noticed her petite frame watching over the demonstration. After the demo, she gently ushered us to her case of special cheeses.  This is where Nonna's craft of cheesemaking borders on art.  What had originally started as the same white rounds of cheese, now varied in colors, textures and flavor based on her imangination and whimsy. To some she added nuts, to others peppercorns, to others herbs, to others fruit, to others a combination of these, and to one, with a most notable burgandy color, the grape skins from the famous Negramaro grape - THE wine of the region.

 

 

Some of the variations are always available, like the cheese covered in Negramaro grape skins, or those covered in ashes of olive leaves, but many of the rest change daily based on the flavor combinations Nonna Anna wants to experiment with that day.  The combinations that are big hits make it into the regular rotation while the others make guest appearances every now and then. (I'm hoping the lemon-thyme combination that I tried makes it into the regular rotation for my next visit.) 

 

Masseria CinqueSanti makes many of the traditional cheeses of Puglia and an assortment of aged cheeses. The aged cheeses can be just a few hours old "di filiera corta," 20 days old and even older.  Some of the stagionato (aged) cheeses were over 6 months old.  They combine sheep's, goat's and cow's milk from the animals on the farm to make the aged cheeses.   

 

Masseria CinqueSanti's Cheeses - The very young cheese at the bottom and more aged at the top

 

Formaggio Stagionato - Aged cheeses

 

Lina holding a round of Cenerino - Cheese covered in olive leaf ashes

 

 

A bit of information on the Masserie in Puglia.  They are ancient fortified farmhouses. Most of them were built between the 14^th and 18^th centuries.  Many had high stone walls to protect against invasions by pirates and the Turks.  They were living communities that housed families of the peasant farmers who worked for the masseria. Of the masserie that were abandoned in the early 20^th century, many have been restored into luxurious hotels, boutique bed and breakfasts, or grand spaces for special events and weddings.  Others have been restored to working order.  In those, you’ll find working vineyards, animals whose milk make creamy Salento cheese like at Masseria CinqueSanti, fields full of vegetables and fruit, and of course, olive groves. 

 

Masseria CinqueSanti is part of the Campagna Amica group of farmers working together to keep the food chain in Italy as local as possible.  We not only took the freshly-made ricotta with us, but also some freshly-made mozzarella and a few selections from Nonna Anna's special case. All were exceptional and made up our antipasti for our lunch with Mamma Giulia (more about cooking with Mamma Giulia next week).

 

You can see cheesemaking demonstrations and taste fresh cheeses like these and more - Join me on this Food & Wine Lover's Culinary Tour in Puglia!

 

Cenerino - cheese covered in olive leaf ashes

 

Formaggio Negamaro - cheese covered in Negramaro grape skins

 

Antipasti plate of mozzarella and ricotta

 

Nonna Anna's cheeses - covered with lemon-thyme, Negramaro, and pulp from Pugliese olives

 

Masseria CinqueSanti
Via Prov.le per Lecce
73029 Vernole
Phone: +39 0832 89 11 78
Email: info@sicacarni.it
The cheese store is open 7 days a week: 8am-2pm and 4pm-8pm

 

 

Related Posts:

Cheese in Puglia - Making and Eating Fresh Cheese in Salento

Wedding in Puglia

Traditional Salentine Dishes at Locanda Rivoli in Lecce

The Art of Making Pasta by Hand: A Pugliese Pasta Lesson with Nonna Vata

The Pastries of Lecce with Pastry Chef Luca Capilungo

Olivotto - The Sweet Side of Olives

Lecce: The Baroque Beauty of Puglia

Pugliese Pasta Dish: Sagne Ncannulate con Sugo Schiattariciati

Classic Salentino Cuisine Reinvented at Sette di Sette in Lecce

Tour of Masseria L'Astore and its Frantoio Ipogeo in Salento

Lunch Salento Style at Cantine Menhir

Shopping and Eating Local in Italy - Farmers' Market in Lecce

Sagne Ncannulate Schiattariciati - Pugliese Pasta with Schiattariciati Tomato Sauce

The Dish from Puglia: Ricci di Mare (sea urchins) from Porto Badisco

The Dish from Puglia: Friselle with Tomatoes

The Dish from Lecce: Rustico Leccese

Christmas Around Italy - Christmas Desserts in Salento

 

Join me on a Food Lover's Trip to Puglia

 

I'm thrilled to announce the first of what I hope will be many food-focused tours with Food Lover's Odyssey.  The first invitation is to join me in Puglia to cook, eat, drink and discover this amazing "off-the-tourist-track" region in Southern Italy!

 

With the help of my friend and Lecce native, Ylenia of YL Tours, we've specially designed a delicious 9-day/8-night food and wine lover's journey in Puglia. One in which you'll not only taste the many delicacies of the region, but you'll also cook them! You'll be immersed in the culture, lifestyle and traditions of the people of the region.  With Ylenia by our side the entire way, and she has been in the tourism business in Salento for over 10 years, it will be so much more than a culinary journey. It will be a truly local and memorable experience.  Each tour is limited to 12 participants, and we have two tours scheduled for 2012: one running May 26 through June 3 and the other September 1 through 9.

 

 

 

Where we'll be.  Puglia is the region at the "heel" of Italy's "boot."  We'll be staying in the southernmost province, Salento.  It's surrounded on three sides by the deep blue sea - the Ionian to the west & the Adriatic to the east. Often called the "California of Italy" and referred to as "Tuscany without the crowds," Salento boasts a cuisine based on cucina povera (poor kitchen), vegetables, local olive oil & seafood. The countryside is an endless stretch of olive trees and blue skies.  Salento's capital is the baroque beauty of Lecce, and we'll stay in the gorgeous and spacious Masseria Provenzani located just minutes from the sea and the city of Lecce.

 

Masseria Provenzani

Poolside at Masseria Provenzani

On the first day, you'll be welcomed to the masseria by your local guide and me with a private wine & olive oil tasting, followed by a welcome dinner where we'll break bread and bond over a typical Salentine meal.  The masseria has a large kitchen where mamma Giulia will prepare our daily breakfasts. It's also where three of our cooking classes will be held.  And there will be plenty of time for relaxing poolside and/or beachside.

 

 

 

 

Imagine preparing local seasonal dishes at a winery and then dining on these dishes with the local wines.  Making hand made Pugliese pasta and traditional meals with an Italian mamma. Watching fresh cheese being made and digging into the still-warm freshly-made, creamy ricotta.  Sampling seafood right out of its shell just minutes after it's been caught. Visiting a pastry shop to learn about the sweet side of Salento, with samples, of course.  Walking tours of Baroque Lecce, the fisherman's village of Gallipoli, the seaside resort town of Otranto, the Trulli of the Itria Valley and the "white city" of Ostuni.  These are just a few of the highlights of this trip, and there's so much more...

 

What's included in the tour:

• 9 days/8 nights stay at the gorgeous Masseria Provenzani (less than 1 mile from the beach and a 10-minute drive to Lecce)
• Experience Puglia like a local - We will have a local guide with us the entire trip
• All breakfasts, lunches and dinners
• Local wines included with all lunches and dinners
• Private shuttle to and from the Brindisi Airport and to all destinations during the trip
• Welcome private wine & olive oil tasting
• Guided walking tours of Lecce, Otranto, Gallipoli and the Itria Valley - Alberobello, Ostuni & Locorotondo
• Four cooking classes (two hands-on and two demonstration)
• Two cheese making demonstrations with tastings
• Gelato making demonstration & tasting with Luca, who has been making gelato for more than 20 years
• Guided visit to a Lecce pastry shop with tastings
• Guided Local market tour
• Cortili Aperti Festival (during the May 26th trip)
• Two winery visits and tastings
• Liqueur tasting
• Beach time to enjoy the gorgeous Puglia coastline and lapis-lazuli sea
• All recipes to take home
• Cook in Puglia apron and welcome gift bag
• Assitance with making your travel arrangements to the Brindisi airport and any pre- and post-tour travel arrangements

 

*Airfare, transportation to Brindisi and travel insurance is not included.

 

Dates:  Two tour dates are available for 2012

• May 26 to June 3, 2012
• Sept 1 to Sept 9, 2012

 

Price: $3,200 per person based on double occupancy
             Single supplement: $300

Deposit: A nonrefundable deposit of $1,000 per person is required to confirm enrollment.

Final Payment: The  final payment is due no later than 90 days prior to the start of the tour.

 

Travel Insurance:

We recommend travel insurance to protect against loss of enrollment fees for late cancellations.

The following website has been recommended:

http://www.insuremytrip.com/

Please note that we make this information available for your convenience. We have no financial interest in the web site or the services it offers, and any contract you make is your right and responsibility.

 

 

For more information and a detailed itinerary, go to the page: Food & Wine Lover's Journey in Puglia.  For an idea of what we'll see, do & taste, check out my posts of Puglia & Pugliese cuisine.

 

To make a reservation or for additional questions, contact me at chefkathyayer [at] yahoo.com.

 

Tastiest Tales of 2011

 

It's been both an amazing and unbelievable year of tasty travels for me.  Before we move into 2012, I'm sharing a few highlights from the year.  Here are my picks for the "tastiest tales" of 2011 from Food Lover's Odyssey.

 

 

 

Chocolate and Pastries - You know I'm a firm believer in starting with desserts, so let's begin with the sweet stuff.

 

This year I attended two of the biggest chocolate festivals in Italy - CioccolaTo in Turin and Eurochocolate in Perugia. Along with tons of chocolate to sample at both festivals, the display of Italy and its monuments made out of chocolate at CioccolaTo and the views of the Umbrian valley from Eurochocolate's Spalm Beach and Piazza Italia stand out in my mind.

And even more chocolate, this time in Paris, Easter chocolates in Paris.

Speaking of Paris, I enjoyed a pastry binge so big that I had to write not one, but two posts about it.

Paris sweets also inspired this chocolate eclair recipe (well, Paris & Mother's Day) and a salted butter caramel ice cream recipe from Berthillon.

There were a few other pastry binges, err, I mean photo journeys I made: one through the pastries of Napoli and the other through the pastries of Lecce.

Again this year, I participated in World Nutella Day, making Nutella Love Cakes for the February celebration.

 

 

 

Carnival in Venice was truly magical and just writing about it makes me want to search airfares for Carnival 2012.  Besides gawking over the costumes & posers in St. Mark's Square, I'm certain I consumed a year's worth of Carnival fritelle & thick hot chocolate. In between sweets, I also went on a fantastic food walk with Monica and ate my way through some of the best cicchetti bars in Venice.

 

 

 

 

Puglia - Another standout in a year of travel highlights was my trip to Puglia. I loved it so much, I actually made two trips this year.  Pasta making with Nonna Vata, a special lunch for me at Cantine Menhir, the frantoio ipogeo (ancient underground olive mill) at Masseria L'Astore, cooking with Chef Paola, making and eating fresh cheese, dining on traditional regional dishes at Locanda Rivoli, and crashing a wedding were just a few of the many highlights from my culinary journey in Salento.

 

 

 

Napoli is a city I love as much as I love chocolate.  I still remember how fat and happy I was after five days of Neapolitan pizza on my pizza lover's odysey.  I met up again with fellow Napoli-philes, Bonnie & Steve from Napoli Unplugged. They took me to some of their favorite dining spots in Naples.  Bonnie & I also attended a class on Genovese & other Neapolitan sauces at Citta del Gusto.  Between all this food, I did do some walking, along Spaccanapoli & Naples' Historic Center, and driving riding, along the Amalfi Coast.

 

 

 

 

Rome - "una vita non basta." And if an entire lifetime isn't enough to discover the city, a few weeks is certainly not enough to eat my way through it.  In that short time though, I was able to eat more pizza, pizza al taglio at Bonci's Pizzarium, take a food tour in Testaccio and sample one of the best carbonara's ever at Da Danilo.  A walk in Rome at night and a day trip through the fountains at Villa d'Este helped me walk off some of those carbs. I'm hoping in 2012 to carve out enough room in my stomach for a month's worth of eating my way through the eternal city.  All the artichokes I had during March in Rome, and elsewhere in Italy, inspired this Artichoke & Spinach ravioli recipe.

 

 

 

 

Paris - Besides all the aforementioned sweets in Paris, I did a little dining in the city that I once called home.  L'Epicuriste was one of my most memorable meals of the year.  Paris & its environs were the scene of two new series here on FLO, Food Lovers' Walks in Paris and the France Blogging Roundtable.  For December's Roundtable blogging theme, I took an Autumn trip to Chateau Vaux le Vicomte.

 

 

 

Dining with a count in Lombardy - A combination of royalty & risotto definitely makes this year's tastiest tales highlight reel.

 

 

 

 

Provence - Although I've only shared photos of  my time in Provence, I have much to write about the good eats and good times there with Tuula.

 

 

 

 

Christmas - I spent most of the Christmas holidays away this year, seeing the Christmas markets along the Danube River.  While I was away, friends from around Italy and France stopped by to share Christmas treats & traditions from Rome, Venice, Naples, Salento & Provence.  A huge thanks to them, and I so enjoyed the posts, I hope to see more like them next Christmas.

 

 

 Wishing all of you a 2012 full of happiness, great food, friends & travel!

 

 

Here are a few things I'm looking forward to sharing with you in 2012:

• Cooking in Puglia - I'll be cooking in Puglia and am inviting you to join me!

• There will be even more recipes from my travels and a new series: Paris Pastry Stories

• So much more to share from my culinary travels, especially those in Provence, Paris - both the sweet & savory side, and Piedmont.

• Sunday's roundup, Italy on a Plate, will continue in 2012.

 

 

 

***************

What are some of your tastiest tales from 2011?  What would you like to see more of from Food Lover's Odyssey in 2012?

***************

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas Around Italy - Christmas Desserts in Salento

 

Christmas Around Italy travels to Puglia today.  I'm welcoming my good friend from Lecce, Ylenia, of YL Tours Congressi.  I had the pleasure of meeting her this March and met up with her again this fall on my culinary journeys (and more) in Puglia.  Her company provides tours in Puglia for the food lover, along with educational, cultural, yoga, and biking tours in her native region, Puglia.  Today she's sharing six Christmas sweets you'll find on the table in Salento during the holidays and some beautiful photos of Lecce dressed up for Christmas.  Enjoy!

 

 

 

Purceddhruzzi are one of the traditional desserts of Salento.  They are small balls of sweet dough fried and crispy. They are then tossed in honey and garnished with pine nuts or almonds or tang colored. (Similar to struffoli in Naples)

 

 

Carteddhrate, another variation on fried dough.  This a yeast dough is made by mixing flour, the liqueur Strega, orange juice, oil flavored with orange peel. You work the dough for a long time so that it is elastic.  It's then rolled out into a thin sheet and cut into strips with a special pastry wheel. Strips obtained with different shapes can be created: twisting each strip can be in on itself, giving the shape of a rose, or cut pieces of 2 × 8 cm and huddle in the middle forming the butterfly.  The fried carteddhrate go into a saucepan of warmed honey & water and soak up the honey. At the end of the preparation, they are decorated with pine nuts, cinnamon and sprinkle with colored candies.

 

 

Scagliozzi (also known as mostaccioli) biscuits are slightly crunchy outside but soft inside. They are typical of the city of Nardo, diamond-shaped with toasted almonds and various spices including cinnamon. They can be covered with chocolate or white icing sugar.

 

 

Cupeta is another delicacy one should taste. It is a nougat with almonds, which comes in the form of long sticks made with caramelized sugar and toasted almonds. It is similar to almond brittle but thicker.

 

Chinuliddhre are in the form of little calzone, and filled with jam. he most widely used jams for the filling are pear, quince and Negroamaro grape.

Pittule, little doughnuts from Salento, are very famous and sought after by tourists during the Christmas season. Often they are topped with a dusting of sugar or honey, and also eaten for breakfast.

 

Christmas lights in Piazza del Duomo in Lecce

 

 

 

Join me in 2012 on a Food & Wine Lover's Journey in Puglia!

 

*All photos are courtesy of Ylenia and YL Tours Congressi

 

Related Posts:

Christmas Around Italy: 10 Addresses for Christmas Sweets in Rome

Christmas Around Italy: Traditional Christmas Dinner in Venice

Christmas Around Italy: Christmas Traditions in Naples

Holiday Dessert Recipes

Christmas in France: Aix-en-Provence Christmas Market

The Pastries of Lecce with Pastry Chef Luca Capilungo

A Wedding in Puglia

Traditional Salentine Dishes at Locanda Rivoli in Lecce

 

Christmas Around Italy - Christmas Traditions in Naples

 

Christmas Around Italy travels to one of my favorite Italian cities, Napoli!  Huge welcome to Bonnie of Napoli Unplugged.  Bonnie, an American expat, has been living in and loving Naples for many years.   Her love for the city is what inspired her site, Napoli Unplugged.  It's the place to go if you want to know "what's on" in Naples.  Also, via the site, Bonnie blogs about various escapades and strolls she takes in and around Naples.  She also maintains a photo blog where she shares a daily photo from Naples.  Even though she does all this, I'm so happy she found time to stop here and share a few Neapolitan Christmas traditions with us. Enjoy!

 

 

 

Christmas. In the immortal words of Andy Williams "It's the most wonderful time of the year." Filled with the joy of the season I am transported to my youth, as visions of snow-covered houses, blazing fires and horse-drawn sleighs dance in my head. Classic Currier and Ives Christmas scenes that are interminably rooted in my DNA.

Of course Christmas in the Mediterranean, Christmas in Napoli is slightly different. It's unlikely we'd ever see a white Christmas (although there was snow on Vesuvius today) and Jack Frost is not likely to be nipping at my nose. And what of the commercial Christmas bling my inner child so desperately craves? Well that has only recently started to creep onto the scene.

 

But Christmas in Naples is every bit as magical as the Currier and Ives pictures I have in my mind. And perhaps more so, because time-honored traditions remain the star, while everything else is just trimming on the tree. The tree, which by the way only plays a supporting role to the world-renowned Presepe Napoletano, the Neapolitan Christmas Nativity.

A centuries old tradition, by early December Neapolitan Presepe collections are on display all over the city. There are so many in fact, that I've made an annual treasure hunt out of trying to find them all. They are in every Neapolitan home, most of the city's churches, on display in all variety of public buildings, and there are permanent displays like those at San Martino and Santa Chiara.

 

Presipio Napoletano

And of course, along Via San Gregorio Armeno, Naples premier Christmas Market, where you'll find everything to create your own Nativity Scene. Open year round, during the holiday season tourists flock in from all over the world just for the chance to wander this magical Christmas alley.

 

 

Not far from San Gregorio Armeno, is Porta Nolana, Naples second most important Christmas Market. But don't head there expecting to find mulled wine, Christmas ornaments or nut crackers. This isn't a Christmas market in the traditional sense. Home to the freshest seafood in town, it is THE place to stock up on everything you need to make the traditional Cena della Vigilia di Natale, the Neapolitan Christmas Eve dinner.

 

 

The live clams, le vongole veraci for the Vermicelli or Spaghetti alle Vongole that is served as the primo piatto.

 

The salt cod, il baccalà, served fried, in vapore or baked as the secondo.

 

And the obligatory Christmas Eel, il capitone. Definitely an acquired taste, it is typically fried and seems to find its way onto the Christmas Eve table whether it is eaten or not.

 

 

 

You can also find fresh cauliflower, le papaccelle, hot peppers conserved in vinegar and olives for the Insalata di Rinforzo.

 

But if it's Neapolitan Christmas sweets you are in search of, you will either have to make them yourself or do like most Neapolitans do these days, pick them up at a Pasticceria. What to buy? Honey soaked Struffoli, chocolate dipped Mustaccioli, nutty and crispy Roccocò, and the S-shaped Susamielli.

 

There are other Neapolitan Christmas traditions to be sure. Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve and Minestra Maritata for the Christmas Day lunch. Gli Zampognari, bag pipers who magically arrive in December to entertain the residents of the city for a bit of food or change. Tombola, a game played during the holidays that is similar to bingo, except it uses the numbers from 1 through 90, and each has a meaning based on La Smorfia Napoletana.

 

 

And of course the one universal tradition of the season, sharing the holiday with friends and family.

From our home in Napoli to yours wherever you may be, Merry Christmas to all and to all a Very Happy New Year!

 

*All photos in this post are courtesy of Napoli Unplugged

 

 

Related Posts:

Christmas Around Italy: 10 Addresses for Christmas Sweets in Rome

Christmas Around Italy: Tradtional Christmas Dinner in Venice

Christmas in France: Aix-en-Provence Christmas Market

Christmas Holiday Dessert Recipes

Dining Around Naples with Napoli Unplugged

Pizza Lover's Odyssey in Naples

Journey Through the Pastries of Napoli

Pasta alla Genovese and Other Classical Neapolitan Sauces at Citta del Gusto