‘Il Pasqualino’; Alberobello’s famous sandwich

We are all going to die.  Unfortunately, this is an inconvenient, unavoidable fact of life.  However, once you have passed onto the next world, how would you like to be remembered?  A quaint wooden bench in a public park dedicated to your memory?  Your ashes placed in an attractive urn overlooking the family dining table so that you can watch over them as they eat?  Or perhaps you would like a distinctive tree planted in your honour?  Or you could have an item of food or even better, a panino named after you so that your essence can live on every time someone takes a bite of an unusual, yet delicious sandwich?  Well, that is exactly what happened with Pasquale Dell’Erba from Alberobello and ‘Il Pasqualino’.  

Pasquale’s views on life after death are not well-documented but one thing is clear; he made a bloody good sandwich (or panino in Italian).  He owned and ran a delicatessen on the corner of Corso Vittorio Emanuele and Via Cesare Battisti in the Pugliese town of Alberobello – famous internationally for its white, conically-shaped dwellings known as trulli.  His trademark sandwich started to attract attention in the town during the mid-1960s after he began rustling it up for a small group of three or four of his close friends who would meet regularly in front of his shop.

La Pagnottella’s version of ‘Il Pasqualino’

The ingredients varied a little from time to time and depending what was available in his deli, but usually the panino consisted of tuna, capers, salami and provolone cheese.  Always in that order and served in either turtle bread (pane tartaruga) or rosetta bread (rosette di pane).  It may not initially sound that appetising but the combination worked very well and soon its popularity caught on.  The sandwich became a hit with students from several local schools in the area who loved the fact that it was not only good value but also substantial and made using an unusual mix of hearty ingredients.  

Soon, Pasquale’s deli couldn’t keep up with the demand and they began pre-making a batch of panini first thing in the morning and then refrigerating them so that they would be instantly ready as customers arrived throughout the course of the day.  The term Il Pasqualino (‘The Pasqualino’) was born.  Over the next coming decades other bakeries in Alberobello started to serve their own version of the Pasqualino too, sometimes adding ingredients such as marinated mushrooms, pickles or other cold cuts of meat.  However, by the 1990s, these bakeries’ tradition of keeping a chest of readymade Pasqualinos in their shops began to fade and it became something of a well-kept local secret.  Pasquale’s memory lived on but only amongst those in the know in Alberobello.

Today, you can go into any deli, bakery or café in Alberobello, ask for “un Pasqualino, per favore” and they will know exactly what to make, even though very often it will not be listed anywhere on the menu, or on the board outside.  When I visited Alberobello last summer, I avoided the overpriced cafes on the main tourist drag near the ‘trulli zone’ and instead popped into La Pagnottella (Piazza Plebiscito, 10B) around the corner from Chiesa di San Lucia and the popular viewing platform next to it.  It is actually quite an upmarket deli that also serves an array of pastries and cakes (sadly I don’t have much of a sweet tooth so give me a sandwich laden with capers and cured meat and fish any day), as well as cheese and fresh pasta.

The lady behind the counter was very friendly and humoured my basic cod-Italian and quickly made me a Pasqualino from scratch – from what I could see, sticking to the traditional ingredients but with the addition of some pickles and a drizzle of olive oil.  It was delicious and actually went down very well with an iced coffee on a sweltering summer’s day; the acidity of the capers and pickles cutting through the meat and cheese.  The only word of warning is that there was a lot of olive oil – it’s definitely worth picking up an extra napkin or two before you leave the shop.

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A word about Alberobello

Alberobello is a UNESCO World Heritage site, having been recognised in 1996 and is one of the most famous tourist destinations in Puglia.  The town is renowned for having the largest concentration of trulli (the plural form of ‘trullo’) anywhere in the world.  These conical, low-level, whitewashed buildings are particular to Puglia and they actually can’t be found anywhere else outside of Southern Italy.  There is also some debate about whether the author J.R.R. Tolkien ever visited Puglia and if the trulli served as the real-life inspiration for his novel The Hobbit and the fictional world of Middle-earth and the region where the hobbits lived called The Shire.

One of the main concentrations of trulli in Alberobello.

Trullis can be found dotted all over Puglia.  Whilst many of them are still private residential dwellings, a lot of them have now been converted into holiday homes, agriturismos, shops and restaurants.  The story of the trulli begins in the 14^th century.  The ruling Aquaviva family was keen to avoid paying high property taxes to the Kingdom of Naples, so ordered local peasants to build homes that could be easily taken down, in the event on an inspection.  Using the ancient drywall (mortarless) building technique and locally-sourced limestone boulders, the trullis started to appear all over Puglia and became a symbol of the region.  Centuries later, many new homes were built in this style, partly as an act of defiance to the ruling family. 

Whilst I was keen to visit Alberobello at some stage whilst living in Bari, it wasn’t at the top of my list.  I prioritised the baroque and culinary delights of Lecce and the coastal towns Santa Maria di Leuca and Gallipoli first.  I actually only stopped off Alberobello for a couple of nights as I was going to the pared-down Locus Festival in nearby Locorotondo and accommodation there was completely fully-booked.  

The Comet is Coming at Locus Festival. 14th August 2020.

Locus Festival happens every summer in Puglia and in previous years has attracted the likes of David Byrne, Esperanza Spalding, Four Tet, Floating Points, Lauryn Hill, Theo Parrish, Sly & Robbie and Kamasi Washington to the picturesque town of Locorotondo.  Pre-Covid, Locus 2020 had announced a stellar line-up featuring The Pixies, Little Simz, Paul Weller and Kokoroko but sadly the event had to be completely scaled back and most of the acts were unable to play.  However, miraculously, some (socially-distanced) gigs were still able to go ahead in the grounds of the Masseria Ferragnano and I saw saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings’ experimental jazz outfit The Comet Is Coming play there.  I had seen Shabaka and the band several times in London and at Green Man Festival, so it was a strange experience seeing them playing a gig in the south of Italy during a pandemic year, but a great show all the same. 

The following morning, I woke up at 6am and found myself unable to go back to sleep; partly due to the sunlight pouring into my room through a broken blind.  It was actually a blessing in disguise as after a typically unsatisfying Italian breakfast of biscuits, pastries and coffee, I was able to explore the trullis of Alberobello without the hordes of tourists and with the August temperatures yet to reach their peak.  

The streets and trullis of Alberobello at 7am on a Saturday morning.

There really is no other place in the world like it and the town took on an otherworldly feel at 7am when the streets were quiet apart from a few local businesses opening up for the day.  This would be my tip for anyone visiting Alberobello; get up very early and explore the streets without the crowds.  Find somewhere for a lunchtime Pasqualino and then have an afternoon pisolino afterwards, if you need it.  By 11am, the place was already swarming with selfie-stick wielding tourists and later that evening a bar tried to charge me €9 for a 330cl beer.  Needless to say, after speaking to the waiter, I did not pay this.  

Salvation was found in the excellent Ristorante La Nicchia though. Now, it did involve a slightly hazardous 15-minute walk (or five minutes if you are driving) along a busy (and dark) main road to get there but it was absolutely worth it.  Housed in a complex of trulli 1.5km outside of Alberobello, you immediately got the impression that this was where the locals ate.  Great Pugliese fare, a huge wine selection and wallet-friendly prices.  

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For more background reading on Alberobello’s famous Pasqualino panino, head to the Il Panino Italiano Magazine website (yes, there really is a magazine dedicated to the art of the Italian sandwich).