In short. Apulian main courses are fish along the coast, lamb and mutton inland, and — most characteristically — dishes built out of almost nothing, like bread balls simmered in tomato sauce.
This is where the frugality of the Apulian kitchen shows most clearly. The best-loved dishes are not the expensive ones: they are the ones that made something out of stale bread, cheap fish and whatever the vegetable garden had.
The fish nobody else wanted
Look at what the sea recipes on this page are built on: anchovies, mussels, octopus, cuttlefish, mackerel, small fish fried whole. Not one of them was expensive. The valuable fish went to market and left the region; what stayed was what the fishermen took home.
The techniques follow from that. Vinegar makes an oily fish keep and lighter to eat — it is behind both the mackerel and the scapece of Gallipoli. Breadcrumb — arraganato — stretches a small quantity of fish into a dish for a family.
And the meat, when there was any
Inland it is lamb and mutton, cooked simply and usually over fire: the mutton on the embers uses almond shells as fuel, which tells you both how little was wasted and how much almond there is here.
Horse meat deserves a word, because it surprises visitors: it is ordinary in Puglia, sold by dedicated butchers, and the slow-cooked version is a Sunday dish in many households.
How a second course is eaten here. After the pasta, in a smaller portion than you expect, with bread and no side dish beyond what is already on the table. The vegetables came before, as antipasti — which is why an Apulian meal feels long but not heavy.
Three traditions in one region
- The sea — anchovies, mussels, octopus, cuttlefish, and scapece, the fried fish preserved in saffron-soaked breadcrumbs at Gallipoli
- The land — lamb and potatoes baked together, mutton over embers, meatballs in tomato sauce
- Making do — bread balls, and everything else that begins with what was left over
The recipes
From the sea
- Stuffed cuttlefish — bread, egg, pecorino and anchovy
- Mussels au gratin — finished with beaten egg
- Fried mussels
- Stewed octopus — an hour in tomato
- Fish soup — two kilos of whatever the sea gave
- Sea bream with olives
- Sole au gratin
- Anchovies arraganate — the breadcrumb method
- Mackerel with vinegar — an old Bari way of keeping fish
- Scapece of Gallipoli — fried fish, saffron and vinegar
From the land
- Lamb with potatoes — the Sunday and Easter dish
- Mutton on the embers — almond shells as fuel
- Meatballs in tomato sauce
- Horse meat in sauce — four hours, at least
Making do
- Bread balls — yesterday’s loaf, and better the day after
The whole collection is on the Apulian recipes page.
