The tradition of Salento is its soil ... soil that you see in the kitchen and in its strong flavors, firm, but natural, related to the simpler nature, the fertility of the land ... the land that has always been a source of livelihood of our ancestors, with its poor elements, such as various kinds of vegetables, cheese, fish and almost no meat.
Indeed, the culinary culture is the expression of peasant life that our ancestors have handed down.
Much space then the homemade pasta, "orecchiette", "cavatelli, minchiareddhi", "sagne", seasoned with tomato sauce and vegetables such as turnip. Vegetables cooked for hours in shards of pottery ("pignate") on the fire.
Underline the important role of holding a bell pepper, eggplant, wild onions, "zucchine", olives and seasoned tomatoes, bell pepper bitter and sweet are the meat and side dish "frisella" (toasted loaf of bread split in half).
The fish, fresh fish from our seas, is consumed mainly fried, are delicious baked grouper or octopus "pignata", in festivals and at local functions is easy to find the scapece, which are tiny fish (Argentina) arranged on a bed of breadcrumbs seasoned with vinegar and saffron.
The hot and humid climate of Salento not permit the preparation of sausages, and cheeses, usually sheep, are mostly consumed fresh.
The main products of Salento are grapes and olives.
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In the fall, between the "filari" of vineyards, heavy bunches blacks or golden glow that produces well-known wines such as the Tear of Gallipoli, the "Parosani " and the "Asprigno" of Santa Maria di Leuca Cape, "Salento of Copertino", and then "Malvasia", "Moscati", "Aleatico" and many others.
Are also very large tobacco plantations. This plant was impressive from the leafy wealth and source of livelihood for many rural families, today it there is almost no trace of that. Yet a time, this growing number of people employed and there was a corner of the country where you could not see the long "tilaretti" with leaves hung out to dry.
Around the tobacco was all a flurry of activity: women in fields that detaching the leaves, women who unloaded the baskets crammed courtyards, women with long needles crawled leaves short, women were usually to be associated with this activity adn often childs. It was summer when we worked on tobacco and the sun burned the Salento countryside and the skin of our grandparents. Hard to think of the coolness of the sea having a lot of work to do in the countryside harvesting, gleaning, harvesting, etc. ...
Significant along the coast of Salento, is fishing activity, which has its main center in Gallipoli on the Ionian Sea.
Among the mineral products to recall the salty sulfur springs that feed the thermal baths of Santa Cesarea and the famous local stone, soft limestone with which architects and sculptors have created masterpieces of Salento Leccese Baroque.
Industries, in Salento, are few and all linked to agricultural production. We find, therefore, in every important city of the province: wineries, distilleries, oil mills and in Lecce, one of the largest and most modern tobacco factory. |
Among the handicraft industries of Salento, reminiscent of cardboard, that flourished in Lecce with the production of religious statues, toys shaped by skilled artisans who have inherited the skill of the carvers of local stone, and yet, rustic ceramic products, the Rush processing and household fabrics, precious embroidery and wrought-iron in Maglie.
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Land