“Travels” in Puglia

We are going to jump down to the heel of the “boot” into Puglia. I have been obsessed with the idea of going to Puglia since I read Matt Goulding’s Pasta Pane Vino. If you have read it, you know that the second chapter is about the Dicecca brothers and their fresh mozzarella, burrata, and other cheeses. Well, to be absolutely precise, apparently mozzarella and burrata are not called “formaggio” (cheese) but rather “latticini” (dairy product) in Puglia. As described in beautiful detail in Pasta Pane Vino, fresh “cheeses” like mozzarella and burrata should be consumed the day they are made if possible.

Burrata has been the rage in many of my favorite restaurants for many years now, and I know some places import it frequently, but even the best of it is not going to have been made that morning by a group of brothers who drove around to various farms before dawn to obtain the precise mix of milk from different cows who grazed on different plants.

Alas, I started reading Pasta Pane Vino after the world had shut down, so the trip to Puglia remains a dream rather than a reality. For the last two years I’ve been talking with a group of friends about renting a house together in Puglia and just sitting around drinking wine and eating our weight in burrata.

Puglia is also famous for its traditional bread, pane di Altamura. This bread is mentioned in Pasta Pane Vino, and there is a recipe for it in Carol Field’s The Italian Baker. There’s a picture of my attempt in my bread baking post. Pandemic Bread Baking – Auntastasia’s Kitchen

So, what to cook for Puglia? I decided on paccheri with shrimp, being inspired by the recipe for Paccheri con Frutti di Mare e Friarelli in Christine Smallwood’s An Appetite for Puglia. Paccheri is considered a Southern Italian pasta, and it is traditionally served with seafood. Matching pasta size/shape to appropriate sauce can be a matter of very strong opinion.

The choice to use only shrimp was informed by two things – there is already a frutti di mare recipe in the Calabria post, and I didn’t feel like cleaning clams and mussels. I used relatively large shrimp (16-20/lb) to about match the size of the paccheri, and you want to limit the tomato to just enough to coat your pasta. Adding a couple anchovies that are smashed to a paste before adding the tomatoes gives a little extra flavor.

It is impossible to find a decent fresh tomato during the winter, so I rely on good quality canned tomatoes. I buy cans of whole peeled tomatoes and crush them myself by hand.

If you have read Pasta Pane Vino, you know that the foreword consists of a series of letters between Matt Goulding and Anthony Bourdain. Bourdain’s comments on Italian food express my own views far better than I would ever have been able to put it into words. Like Bourdain was, I am “hopelessly compromised” on the issue of how Italian food should be experienced. Buon Appetito.