Considered the heel of Italy’s boot, the Puglia region has quite a diverse cuisine. And it is home to some of the most delicious and recognized Italian dishes in the world. This is particularly true in the Salento area.

It has an array of delicious seafood dishes as well as grains, vegetables, and all kinds of fresh quality produce. Among those local produce are artichokes, beans, courgettes, durum wheat, fava beans, fennel, peppers, rocket, tomatoes, and onions. As for meat, they often use beef or lamb. Also, in the past, the region produced about 40% of the country’s olive oil and a good amount of wine, too.

Puglia Products

For pasta products, many are handmade and are made of durum wheat flour, salt, and water because eggs were originally considered a luxury. With pasta dishes, Puglia is most associated with the cute pasta shapes called orecchiette, which means “little ears” in Italian. This is usually prepared with broccoli, mushrooms, and meat ragu. There’s also the savory pasta dish maccheroni al forno. It is made with maccheroni pasta, meatballs, hard-boiled eggs, Parmesan cheese, and all kinds of vegetables, herbs and spices.