There is a place where stone gives shape and substance to the landscape, where the absence of surface water and the karst nature of the soil makes the extraordinary richness of local crops and productions almost inexplicable.
We are in the land of the trulli, located at the crossroads of the provinces of Bari, Brindisi and Taranto, inhabited by a tenacious people who over the centuries have not resigned themselves to the harshness of the territory but have worked hard and sweat to make it fertile and generous .
This love, this industriousness has left an evident and tangible mark in the landscape of this land, in the characteristic trulli, in the ordered rows of vineyards, in the golden fields with ears of wheat, in the renowned productions of wheat, grapes, white wine and legumes.
In particular, the love and industriousness of these people is alive in the typical cuisine of this land, sober and essential, not surprisingly called "recycling", created to prevent the dreaded periods of famine, scrupulously linked to the rhythm of the seasons and the unpredictability of crops.
At the base of this cuisine, simple and genuine products reign supreme such as vegetables, broad beans and field herbs but also the imagination and ingenuity of housewives and farmers who, to prevent crop shortages, due to water poverty, have made necessity virtue, setting up a showcase of very varied gastronomic specialties despite the limited variety and availability of ingredients.
Thus were born delicacies known throughout the gastronomic world such as canned tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and aubergines preserved in oil or vinegar during the hot summer season and intended as a side dish for the long winter period.
For the same reasons, the new broad beans, harvested and dried in the sun, are placed and stored in the characteristic earthenware containers to be taken back if necessary to accompany wild vegetables such as "chicory" and "sevoni", once a single dish poor in laborers and farmers, now the undisputed specialty and standard-bearer of the Apulian culinary tradition.
The uniqueness of the flavors of this land is evident in another typical product of the coppice woods of the lower Murgia, the mushrooms, very common in the towns of Alberobello, Martina Franca, Turi and Putignano.
The history of these places has handed down the custom that on holidays entire families dedicate themselves to picking mushrooms, according to a ritual that begins at dawn in search of the classic "cardoncelli", highly prized and tasty, "chiodini". of the "palummini", the "cardilli", the curious "acts asckuante" with a bitter and slightly spicy taste.
To preserve them and enhance their goodness, the mushrooms are preserved in so-called "capase" of clay and sprinkled with salt or boiled in water, vinegar and salt, poured and preserved in oil.
The kitchen of recycling, however, finds its maximum realization in the "tiella", once linked to the need to feed the family upon returning from work in the fields, cooking together everything that could be found at home.
The dish, in fact, is not born around fixed rules but from a confused combination of vegetables, potatoes and vegetables in superimposed layers sprinkled with cheese and dressed with olive oil.
Over time this specialty has been enriched with numerous and tasty variations, linked to seasonal products and respectful of canons that have made school making these dishes unique and inimitable.
In this showcase there are also tasty desserts of evident peasant origin, figs, typical presence of Mediterranean landscapes.
Collected and dried, they are filled with toasted almonds and pieces of chocolate.
Once it was a quick snack to be consumed in the fields, in the short breaks available. Now they represent a uniqueness that is difficult to clone, a product that in its flavor bears all the nuances and all the contours of this fascinating land of Puglia.
