Hands up … who knows where in the world the Salento region is? The city of Lecce? The province of Puglia? Okay, some of you probably have it now. Yes, way down in the south of Italy. That is where I spent part of last summer, in the stiletto heel of the boot, learning about the incredible foods of the Salentine Peninsula.
Thirteen years ago, Silvestro Silvestori founded his cookery school, The Awaiting Table, in the 2,000-year-old city of Lecce. With a partially unearthed Grecian amphitheatre, 17th century Spanish Baroque cathedrals and buildings fashioned from soft white limestone, Lecce is an exquisitely beautiful place. Silvestro wanted to share this beauty with the world, as well as his knowledge and enthusiasm for the food, wine and culture of this region.
His background is both pragmatic and intellectual. He pairs extensive hands-on experience in almost all aspects of food preparation, with academic cultural research. A nationally-certified sommelier in Italy, and a staff writer for Wine and Spirits magazine, Silvestro has great passion for his calling.
My sister and I spent a glorious week benefitting from that passion – cooking, eating and tasting wine at The Awaiting Table Cookery School with five other students from North America, and Silvestro and his extraordinary staff. At first, I must admit, despite the incredible tastes and the camaraderie we shared, I felt a tad disappointed. I was used to complicated recipes with various sauces and layers – vegetables that were fretted with, pasta that was carefully mixed together and rolled, folded and rolled again, meats that were marinated and seasoned profusely. Here, the recipe for the Persian melon salad was: wash the melon, chop into bite-sized pieces, glug some perfect olive oil on the top and add a little sprinkle of sea salt. Grilled fish? Clean out the inside, wash with cold water, lay a few lemon rounds and fresh bay leaves inside, dry grill on a smoking hot burner and, yes, glug on some olive oil and sprinkle on some salt.
Some things were, of course, a little more complicated: almond brittle finished with fresh lemon, for example, or cinnamon gelato (a half-day process using whole cinnamon sticks), but most of what we made was quite simple to prepare.
We did make pasta in a variety of shapes, but in Puglia, eggs being historically too precious and costly, pasta was fashioned from hard durum wheat and barley flour. It was not rolled thinly, but rather small pieces were cut off and shaped with everyday objects. The right pressure and movement from a butter knife created the famous orichetto (ear-shaped pasta). A stick provided the means to small, hollow tubes, or the opening of a wine bottle, with the plop of a flat hand, created – voila! – little Mexican hats.
By the end of the week, I was transformed. Good food, good cooking did not have to come from elaborate ingredients and preparatory techniques. Point #3 of Silvestro’s 10 Principles of Southern Italian Cooking states: five minutes of shopping, one minute in the kitchen. Basically, find the best ingredients – and then, don’t screw them up!
This, it seems, is something the local Vancouver food scene has cottoned onto. Last year, Ask for Luigi – a casual and intimate Italian-inspired restaurant, whose food philosophy revolves around good, seasonal ingredients cooked in a simple fashion and served family style – was voted the number one restaurant in Vancouver.
So, once one has properly shopped, one can cook and relax, have a sip of wine, chat with friends and family! Take some time … and one place I would like to take some time in again is Lecce and the Salento region of Italy.
