Beyond Orecchiette: Puglia on a Plate

A recipe for Fucàzza de Petàte, a savory baked dish of mashed potatoes, onions, tomatoes, and capers, from the Salento

Illustration by Daniela Bracco

Welcome to Buona Domenica, a weekly newsletter of Italian home cooking and baking. I’m a journalist, cooking teacher, occasional tour guide, and author of eight cookbooks on Italian cuisine.

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This week’s newsletter features a recipe for paid subscribers for Fucàzza de Petàte, a baked dish of mashed potatoes, onions, and tomatoes, from Puglia.

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Eggplant and Rice Timballo
Ragù Abruzzese
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On to the newsletter…

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I picked up a new-to-me cookbook during my recent travels through southern Italy. I was intrigued by its clunky title, “Oltre le Orecchiette: La Cucina Salentina oltre le orecchiette; 200 ricette, aneddoti, curiosità, proverbi gastronomici. Le erbe aromatiche, le spezie, i ceriali.”

It translates to: “Beyond Orecchiette: Cuisine of the Salento beyond orecchiette; 200 recipes, anecdotes, trivia, gastronomic proverbs. Aromatic herbs, spices, cereals.”

The title appealed to me in spite of its awkwardness because, let’s face it, when I think of the food of Puglia, the first thing that comes to mind, of course, is orecchiette—the little saucer-shaped pasta typically dressed with tomato sauces or rapini and crumbled sausage. If you’ve been to Puglia, you know that orecchiette are everywhere, in restaurants and sold dried in boxes or cellophane packets in tourist shops. And if you haven’t been to Puglia, you may have seen photos or videos of the women of Vecchia Bari, turning out orecchiette by the gazillions at their wooden tables on the street.

Oltre le Orecchiette promised a deeper dive into the food of the Salento, the area of Puglia that encompasses the provinces of Lecce, Brindisi, and Taranto.

I liked the look of the book, with its hand-written recipes, lighthearted proverbs in dialect, and rustic drawings sprinkled throughout its pages. It reminded me of the wonderful “In Bocca” series of cookbooks, of which I have several, inherited from my mom.

As I flipped through Oltre le Orecchiette, squinting to decipher the tight hand writing—not easy but doable for those who read Italian—I was reeled in by the many enticing vegetable recipes. Chicory, fava beans, eggplant, peppers, zucchini, potatoes; fried, sautéed, roasted, grilled; on their own or paired with fish or meat or pasta (yes, orecchiette but also tagliatelle, lasagnette, and gnocchetti); turned into soups with grains and legumes; and baked in terracotta vessels called pignate.

I googled the author, Antonio (Tonio) Piceci, and was sorry to learn that he died in 2020. He was, it turns out, a highly respected chef and restaurateur in Lecce, and a scholar of la cucina Salentina. Piceci was also the author of several books on Pugliese cuisine, including this one, originally published in 1993 and reissued in 2015.

The recipe I’m sharing here is what is known as a “piatto unico,” or “single dish.” It’s a hearty baked dish of layered mashed potatoes sandwiching a savory filling of sautéed onions and tomatoes. In his introduction to the chapter on vegetables, in which this recipe appears, Piceci wrote that such economical dishes are typical of the Salento, where people did not always have the luxury of sitting down to meals consisting of several courses. This history, he observed, has given the Salentini a certain freedom in determining what constitutes a “primo” or a “secondo,” and it is not unusual for vegetable dishes to be featured as one or the other at the modern Salento table. In that spirit, you should feel free to serve this fucàzza as you please—as a starter, a main, or as a one-dish meal.

I’m happy that Oltre le Orecchiette has joined the little collection of cookbooks on my kitchen counter in Penne. I’ll look forward to returning to it whenever I’m here and thumbing through its pages for recipes, insights, and pearls of wisdom like this one:

“Li pasùli ss’ù còmu l’amìci, pàrlanu sempre te rètu”

Italian: “I fagioli sono come gli amici, parlano sempre…di dietro”

English: Beans are like friends; they are always talking behind your back”

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Readers: Do you have any favorite Italian culinary proverbs? Or dishes from Puglia that you love? Please let us know in the comments.

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RECIPE: Fucàzza de Petàte (Focaccia di Patate)

When I came across this recipe in the book, I was expecting it to be a recipe for classic Pugliese potato focaccia—tender round focaccia studded with olives and tomatoes that has mashed potatoes in the dough (there’s a recipe for it in Everyday Italian).

But this is something different—not a bread at all, but rather a baked dish of two layers of mashed potatoes sandwiching a silky filling of sautéed sweet onions, tomatoes, and black olives. According to food writer and fellow Substacker

Flavia Giordano

, who is Pugliese, it is also called “pitta di patate.” It reminds me of Neapolitan gattò di patate, another rich, baked mashed potato dish, albeit with less cheese and without the cured meat. An inspired blending, in my view.