My Father was one of the last men to plough Puglia’s rich red earth with a horse. Out of that first memory of his hands in the iron rich soil grew the seed of Terra Rossa. Life growing up in Salento was all about food. Time and love went into every dish; I cherished the one day of the year the whole family crushed the tomato crop into passata, the figs baking in the sun on the roof, the baker bringing Mamma’s dough freshly baked into bread from his wood stove, the taste of homemade orecchiette pasta made with wholemeal flour, wild asparagus collected from the roadside, wholesome legumes and the warmth of wine made from the blackest of grapes.
The taste of Cucina Povera, the Poor Kitchen, is wholesome, nutritious and full of flavour. It’s a style of cooking which is a deeply rooted in our history.
