One of the joys of living in Italy – even during the periods of lockdown – has been discovering local ingredients that are specific to particular regions. Edible weeds such as cicoria, cima di rapa and puntarelle in Puglia and the Salento; ‘nduja, soppressata and Tropea onions in Calabria and the crispy red peperoni cruschi of the Basilicata region, to name just a few.
A few weeks ago, I popped my head into my local casa vinicola,Vecchio Feudo on Corso Sidney Sonnino in Bari to pick up some essentials (well, olives, taralli and white wine), when a product I hadn’t seen before caught my eye as I was paying at the counter. A small glass jar in the chiller filled with a white paste was labelled ‘Ricotta forte’ (‘strong ricotta’). My interest was piqued and at €2.50 it was cheap enough to take a punt on.
A typical jar of Pugliese ricotta forte and Vecchio Feudo on Corso Sidney Sonnino in Madonnella, Bari.
I took the jar back to my flat, unscrewed the lid and a smell unlike anything else I can remember immediately hit me. It was pungent to say the least and made gorgonzola seem like Dairylea in comparison. I tentatively scraped a tiny amount onto a cracker and the sheer strength and bitterness of this spreadable cheese took the roof off my mouth. What on earth had I bought?
After some research, I found out that ricotta forte is a Pugliese speciality which is also popular in the neighbouring region of Basilicata. Its origins date back nearly one thousand years to when local shepherds would create their own unique version of the soft cheese ricotta (used in a variety of Italian sweet and savoury dishes) by placing it into wooden, glass or ceramic containers, adding salt and then storing in a dark, damp place to encourage the growth of mould. Traditionally covered with fig leaves, the cheese would be opened and stirred every week but overall, the fermentation process would take around three months. The fungus that grew gave the cheese its distinctive spicy flavour and one of the reasons the shepherds preferred this potent variety of ricotta was the fact it would keep for so long (it is said that ricotta forte never really ‘goes off’).
Ricotta forte being produced in the traditional way and served on crostini with anchovies.
The cheese soon became a local speciality and Pugliese families would often make it at home, placing the jars under the kitchen sink or in cool cantine (cellars) to ferment. It is often eaten served on crackers or crostini with anchovies or tomatoes or with sweeter ingredients such as grapes or drizzled honey. Even though I’m a big fan of strong blue cheeses, spreading ricotta forte on crostini is not for the faint-hearted. I actually found that stirring a teaspoon (yes, a teaspoon is all you need) into a pasta dish or a tomato sauce works better and adds a spiciness and piquant flavour. I also used a little in a mousse and served this with roasted fennel – the recipe courtesy of A Taste For Travel can be found here.
Ricotta forte has been recognised by the Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies as a typical food of Puglia and Basilicata and has been awarded PAT (prodotto agroalimentare tradizionale) status. Incredibly, the Campania region alone has 515 of these. The Slow Food organisation has also sung the cheese’s praises and in particular its time-honoured production method and long shelf life. In line with the current craze for fermented food such as kimchi and sauerkraut, ricotta forte is also said to have numerous health properties including aiding digestion, boosting gut bacteria and even killing off worms. Good to know.
One jar of ricotta forte is likely to last you the best part of a year (you could even consider it an investment, of sorts) and it really does have a taste unlike any other cheese. You could do worse than picking up a jar of the stuff when you next visit Italy or a well-stocked Italian deli in the UK. You never know, it might even come in handy if you are planning on organising a stag do or a sports team initiation ritual in the near future too.
You can find a video showing the traditional production process of ricotta forte courtesy of Maria Rosa Pinto below:
There is also an English-speaking ricotta forte taste test here.
I’ve always been a little suspicious of the places that everyone says you simplyhave to visit and am naturally more drawn to the under-the-radar destinations that pass a lot of people by. Whilst the pristine towns close to Bari on the Adriatic Coast like Monopoli and Polignano a Mare are lovely places to have lunch and spend an afternoon, I much preferred exploring the less conspicuous nearby coastal towns Giovinazzo and Mola di Bari, or the misunderstood, slightly rundown, but thoroughly absorbing Taranto.
I’ve yet to visit Florence, Rome or Venice during my extended stay in Italy but I had a great time exploring Bologna, the backstreets of Lecce, Piacenza, Ravenna, Turin and Vasto. In the rugged state of Calabria, most tourists head for the picturesque clifftop settlement of Tropea. Instead I chose to divide my time between the backwater towns Belvedere Marittimo, Diamante and Scalea. I think you have a more authentic experience than in the towns purely oriented for tourists and you get a better feel for everyday Italian life and culture this way.
Despite the ongoing disruption and travel restrictions that have been imposed over this past year as a result of the pandemic, I’ve tried my very best to see and experience as much of Italy as I’ve possibly been able to (also, of course, only when it’s been safe to do so). For the early part of 2021, Puglia was classified as ‘zona gialla’ (‘yellow zone’) and we were not allowed to leave the region. Whilst this was naturally frustrating; it was also a chance to visit some of lesser-known towns within Bari’s immediate vicinity.
Gioia del Colle
I had been intrigued by Gioia del Colle (“Joy of the Hill”) ever since reading about it during my visit to Taranto last August. I had been told that Gioia was the go-to place in Puglia for buying the best fresh mozzarella and burrata (cream-filled mozzarella for the uninitiated) and that it was also famous for its red wine – the Gioia del Colle Primitivo.
I finally got around to visiting two weeks ago and was pleasantly surprised by what I found. Gioia del Colle is a charming small town with a population of 28,000, about 40km inland from Bari, driving down the Strada Statale 100 in the direction of Mottola and Massafra. Much of its prosperity going back hundreds of years has been as a result of agriculture and food production – cheese and wine, but also olive oil and pasta.
As with many Pugliese towns, its outskirts are nondescript and a tad industrial; casual urban sprawl, dotted with the odd mid-century concrete high-rise and petrol station. However, the quaint town centre is focused around the nucleus of the central Piazza Plebiscito and several ornate Baroque churches namely, Chiesa di San Francesco, Chiesa di San Rocco and Chiesa di Santa Maria Maggiore. The latter was originally built in the 11th century and then rebuilt in 1764 following a fire and acts as the city’s principal place of Christian worship. It’s also located in the oldest part of the city, on the edge of the claustrophobic residential maze of the Centro Storico and a stone’s throw from the Norman-Swabian Castle which has Byzantine origins. The castle is now home to the Gioia del Colle National Archaeological Museum.
Clockwise (from top left); 1.) Looking towards Chiesa di Santa Maria Maggiore. 2.) The church’s interior. 3.) Inside Chiesa di San Francesco. 4.) Chiesa di San Rocco. 5.) Its ornate interior. 6.) The Norman-Swabian Castle.
I arrived in the town after lunch when all was still quiet due to the Italian South’s habitual early afternoon period of downtime, il pisolino. It wasn’t until nearer 5pm that the town whirred into action again, its caseifici and macellerie opening their doors for the second time that day, Chiesa Santa Maria Maggiore preparing for the early evening funeral of a local dignitary (the hearse was struggling to manoeuvre the corners of the medieval streets of the Centro Storico when I passed it) and the central piazza becoming a meeting places for both teenagers and uomini vecchi(“elderly men”), alike.
Piazza Plebiscito.
Gioia del Colle’s best-known export is its cheese and its mozzarella has even been awarded the much-coveted DOP (‘Denominazione d’Origine Protetta’) certification. This DOP label ensures that not only has the product been made with locally-sourced ingredients and by local farmers and artisans but that it has also been created using time-honoured traditional methods. Admittedly, Italy’s mild climate, all-year sunshine and fertile (and in some places, volcanic) soil makes it something of an agricultural nirvana and there are numerous different esteemed DOPs for any given product. Italy currently has 138 DOPs in total and over 40 for extra virgin olive oil alone.
Despite having started 2021 on something of a post-Christmas health-kick (rigorous daily exercise, curtailing the booze and copious amounts of oats, natural yoghurt and cider vinegar), I thought it would be rude not to delve into some of the dairified delights of Gioia’s cheese shops (known as ‘caseifici’). After some quick-iPhone led research I decided on ‘Caseificio Artigianale “Masseria Corvello” di Michele Spinelli’on Via Gabriele d’Annunzio, a short walk from the town centre. It proved to be an excellent choice and I was reassured that rather than having a huge cabinet full of lots of different types of cheese, they stuck to a smaller number that they obviously knew were really special.
The counter at Caseificio Artignale ‘Masseria Corvello’, Gioia del Colle.
I picked up some Gioia del Colle DOP mozzarella, a chunk of provolone, a small cylinder of the salty Pugliese semi-soft cheese Cacioricotta and an unusual white cheese that the lady behind the counter described as “formaggi fermentato”. The small individual pearls of mozzarella were delicious and succulent enough to enjoy as a starter with just a drizzle of olive oil, cracked black pepper and some green valerianella leaves (cooking with it seemed like sacrilege). The provolone was ideal for grating into pasta and for baking with and it’s long-lasting – there’s still plenty left. Cacioricotta has been a favourite Pugliese cheese of mine for a while and is equally tasty served with cooked orecchiette and tomatoes (the classic dish Orecchiette al sugo), or on its own with slices of fruit such as figs. The formaggi fermentato was a real revelation; a pungent white cheese that was soft in texture but had the saltiness and bitterness of a strong Roquefort.
Gioia is also famed for its wine and in particular its Primitivo variety which is typical of Puglia and ‘DOC’-certified – ‘Denominazione di origine controllata’. It is required to have a minimum alcohol level of 13% and it is thought to have been popularised in the area by monks who found conditions suitable for cultivating the vine during the Middle Ages. I didn’t buy any wine during my visit to Gioia but did see a bottle of its Primitivo for sale in Bari a week later for €23. Perhaps one for next time I’m celebrating.
I did manage to track down the former site of the Cassano Distillery on the edge of town though. In the late 19thcentury, Gioia del Colle was renowned for not only its wine but also its cognac and spirits using leftover wine that had been distilled. The Cassano Distillery was opened in a former farm in 1891 and thrived until 1914 when the business transferred into the ownership of the Taranto Family and the distillery then subsequently fell into disrepair. It was transferred to the health authority in 1970 to be converted into a hospital but then was taken over by the municipality of Gioia del Colle in 1997. It was renovated in 2006 and is today protected by the Ministry of Culture and Environment as a site of monumental and environmental heritage and hosts concerts and events. It was unfortunately closed up and deserted when I visited but it would be very interesting to explore in non-Covid times.
The former Cassano Distillery.
The old distillery’s entrance.
8km to the north-east of Gioia is the WWF-protected woodland area Boschi Romanazzi. I thought I’d take a quick detour via there on my way home and as the light began to fade. The main road forked right down an unmade road, took me past a grand-looking pair of gates, a roadside shrine to the Madonna and then a lonely crumbling masseria (someone’s dream home in the waiting, before opening out into an expanse of deciduous trees and green fields. It actually looked quintessentially English and was very different to the arid plains and olive groves that surround Bari. A fox even jumped over a hedge in front of my car and for a moment I had to pull over to Google “are there foxes in Italy?”. For some reason, I thought they only stuck to Northern Europe.
The crumbling masseria I passed on my way to Boschi Romanazzi.
I continued down a track marked by a sign with a large red circle and a white line running across it and then clocked a farmer on a rusty-looking tractor who was finishing his day’s work. He eyed my bright red car with an English registration plate suspiciously and I decided it was the right time to turn around and head back to the main road. I filled the tank up with petrol, got back on the SS100 and made good time getting back to Bari, eager to be home ahead of the 10pm Covid curfew.
Boschi Romanazzi, Gioia del Colle.
As with many obscure Italian towns, Gioia del Colle actually has a tenuous link to Hollywood celebrity too. Sylvester Stallone’s grandparents Silvestro (a barber in the town) and Pulchiera were born and raised in Gioia before emigrating to America in 1930. There is even a mysterious photo in existence of Sylvester, alongside his father and brother in 1965, said to be taken in the town. Its location has never been able to be confirmed though.
Gioia del Colle is definitely worth a visit if you are in Puglia. It’s driveable in a day from the cities Bari, Brindisi and Taranto and there’s enough in the town to even make a relaxing weekend break. It might be a good idea to fast leading up to it though, bearing in mind the calories you are likely to consume in decadent cheeses and rich red wine.
The streets near to Gioia del Colle’s Centro Storico and the town hall (“Comune di Gioia del Colle”).
In my next post; I’ll continue the theme of exploring under-the-radar places and will talk a little about Puglia’s “blue town” Casamassima, nearby Triggiano and a small town under Mount Etna’s shadow in Sicily whose economy revolves around “the green gold” – the humble pistachio nut.
