Welcome back to The Italy Deep Dive! It has been a while, between Christmas breaks and the launch of our brand new Italian food culture newsletter, The Cabinet of Curiosities.
This week’s newsletter focuses on a picturesque seaside town I had the pleasure of discovering during my winter break Adriatic road trip: Monopoli! Before you ask, it has nothing to do with the board game Monopoly, although the town is filled with vicoli stretti and vicoli corti.
Let’s Dive
Monopoli sits on the coast of the Adriatic sea, a short drive south from Bari, Puglia’s capital city. The historic center is dotted with white-washed houses and paved roads which all snugly sit within the walls of the ancient fortified city. The local cuisine is largely based around fish and seafood, which is carried to shore through the Porto Vecchio by fishermen, early each morning. Puglia has a vast bread-based gastronomic heritage and the Province of Bari is especially known for being the home of a soft, greasy, delicious focaccia: la focaccia barese.
The now world famous focaccia barese has poor and simple origins, born from a mix of ingredients that are easy to source, from durum wheat flour, boiled potatoes, salt, water and yeast. The baked good’s uniqueness is a combined result of the ingredient’s quality and incredible know-how in kneading, leavening and cooking. The focaccia’s toppings vary according to which area of Bari’s province you find yourself in, from cherry tomatoes and black olives to thinly sliced potatoes and the simplest version, with rock salt and rosemary.
La focaccia barese is consumed at every hour of the day and in every occasion you can think of, from breakfast on a bench to merenda at school and aperitivo time. Describing the sensory bliss one experiences when sinking their teeth in a freshly baked slice of focaccia barese is incredibly difficult, although Aurora Cavallo’s video recipe (fan girl moment) comes pretty close.