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Most everyone would say the best part of their trip to Italy was the food! Well, why not take a cooking class then and see whether that’s true? A cooking class in Italy is an amazing way to experience a huge part of Italian culture.

Food is such an important part of the local culture and so if you haven’t tried Italian cuisine, then you really haven’t experienced the country in all its glory. In other words travel around the area and learn a lot of the culture that is connected to the specific dishes that are being taught during the class. So make it a wonderful vacationing adventure, learning together and eating your way through Italy.

Traveling on over to this beautiful corner of Southern Italy, you’ll see a land flowing with delicious food and fresh wine. A perfect location then to learn the delicious art of making fresh pasta from scratch. Besides while you’re here, you might check out some boutique wineries producing Primitivo or Negroamaro.

After classes, don’t forget to spend time exploring the areas and finding different restaurants. Opening your pallet and trying new foods can only help make you a better cook. So try to taste each of the different flavors and bring something extra to your cooking experiences!

In a 4 day tour or week tour of Puglia, we offer a lovely cooking class. It’s set in a local farmhouse and the produce we use, comes from the vegetable garden at the “masseria“. Thanks to the fantastic local ingredients, you can rest assured the meals you’ll be making will not only be fresh but healthy, too.

After the preparation of the food, the group sit together on a terrace surrounded by the beautiful countryside, and just like a big Italian family, we take time to enjoy the meal. Anyway, it’s the passion of our cook that makes this class so unforgettable. When you get home, you’ll no doubt be keen to invite friends and family over for dinner, just to impress them with something from your new recepies.

Let’s plan therefore the perfect vacation in Italy cooking and wine tasting and truly treasure the memories that you’ll take home and keep forever.

The Apulian vineyard area is 87,000 hectares in total and guarantees a production of 4,900,000 hectoliters per year. Apulian red and rosé wines cover the majority of production (65%), while white wines only account for 35%.

One of the strong points of Puglia wines is the climate. In this region the sun shines and is present not only in the summer period but throughout the year. This means that the soil, as well as the fruit trees, can benefit from it, giving rise to juicy and very tasty products. The white and red grapes of Puglia, in fact, are known for being intense in color and very persistent in the mouth. Hence until the early 1990s, they primarily use them as a base for other less full-bodied national wines that needed greater intensity.

The native varieties still present in Puglia today such as Nero di Troia ( or Troy the mythological city ) and Negroamaro, trace the presence of the vine in Puglia already during the Greek colonization, in the 8th century BC. It was the Greeks themselves who also imported the cultivation method defined as “alberello” ( bush vine ), which is still widespread today throughout the regional territory. The real value of Apulian wine was highlighted around 1990, when the producers of Apulian wines realized the potential of their wines.

Among the most appreciated Apulian wines there is certainly Primitivo. With an orange-purple color, it is persistent on the palate and very consistent. Negroamaro, a more typical grape of Southern Puglia, is intense color, with violet reflections. It recalls aromas of ripe fruit such as plum, black cherry and cherry. Not to forget the characteristic Aleatico, a DOC red wine, more velvety than the previous two wines but much appreciated.

Join our tour and you’ll have a taste of delicious local wines and you’ll visit family-run wineries and more.

Tiramisù is one of the most popular desserts in the world, it is the fifth word of Italian cuisine best known abroad, the first for desserts. Etymology of the word Tiramisu: lift me up, strengthen my body.

Tiramisu is a traditional dessert widespread throughout Italy, whose origins are debated and attributed above all to Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia. It is a spoon dessert based on ladyfingers (or other biscuits with a crumbly consistency) soaked in coffee and covered with a cream, composed of mascarpone, eggs and sugar. The tiramisu recipe is not present in cookbooks prior to the 1960s. This allows us to assume that tiramisu, as we know it now, is a recent invention.

The grandmothers tell us that they prepared this dessert with art and passion for family and friends, well before the 1950s. So, before the spread of electricity and the first refrigerators, they had this dessert, only in the province of Treviso and surrounding areas. In fact, due to the fresh ingredients, tiramisù did not have a long shelf life.

The history of this dessert teaches us to ennoble poor foods such as mascarpone (probably from the Lombard “mascherpa” which means ricotta, but it is not ricotta). Mascarpone is an acidified milk cream obtained from cream or milk cream. According to some historians, the origin of this cheese dates back to the medieval period. Its name derives from an expression used by a Spanish nobleman of the 1200s who said “Mas che bueno” (more than good).

World Tiramisu Day is on March 21st. The first day of spring and the day of dessert that recharges you for the new season like a tonic.

In Puglia an ancient traditional recipe, replaces the ladyfingers biscuits ( intended to rich families ) with bread since the roots of our cuisine, are in the farmers’ traditions made of simple foods. Contact us for a guided tour of the sites and the food of Puglia.

One of the most common question when people read the kind of restaurants that I select for my tours, is: “what’s a slow food restaurant?”.

It’s a restaurant where they support and preserve traditional and regional cuisine.  It supports, promotes local small businesses/producers and sustainable foods. It also focuses on food quality, rather than quantity.

Carlo Petrini founded Slow Food in Italy in 1986. Today it’s a worldwide organization that promotes local food and traditional cooking. This is what you can read on their website:

“Slow Food envisions a world in which all people can access and enjoy food that is good for them, good for those who grow it and good for the planet. Our approach is based on a concept of food that is defined by three interconnected principles. And so good ( quality, flavorsome and healthy food), clean ( production that does not harm the environment ) and fair ( accessible prices for consumers and fair conditions and pay for producers ).

Slow Food aims to prevent the disappearance of local food cultures and traditions. It counteracts the rise of fast life and combats people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from and how our food choices affect the world around us.

Slow Food believes food has a lot to do with many other aspects of life, including culture, politics, agriculture and the environment. Through our food choices we can collectively influence how food is cultivated, produced and distributed, and change the world as a result”.

“Eating is an agriculture act” says Wendell Berry ( American poet and novelist). In other words, you have political power in your everyday actions. When you decide what you’re going to eat, what you’re going to buy, you have real influence. 

So are you ready to change the world eating good food ? Book our tour today to support Slow Food restaurants and get a tasty food and wine experience in Puglia 🙂

Puglia’s “orecchiette” pasta, now known throughout the world, are a true symbol of the cuisine of this region. They look like small white and rough domes, with a thicker edge and a thinner centre: they really look like small ears! “Orecchio” means ear in English.

The origin of Apulian orecchiette is still uncertain today and there are many theories on how and where they were born. The oldest would date back to the ancient Romans and would see a type of round-shaped pasta with a sunken centre, as the ancestors of orecchiette. This pasta, which Varro also talks about, was prepared with flour, water and cheese.

The second hypothesis, however, would trace the typical Apulian pasta to a French, specifically Provençal, recipe. In fact, it may have been the Angevins who brought “crosets” to Puglia, a round-shaped pasta with a hollow center that was already consumed in the Middle Ages.

Finally, a third theory sees the orecchiette descending from a traditional Jewish dessert, the Ears of Haman. In fact, between the 12th and 13th centuries, the Jewish community was strongly present in the region and especially in Trani.

Then there is the tradition that sees the shape of the roof of the trulli as the inspiration of this typical pasta shape. What is certain is that today orecchiette are a symbol of Puglia in the world and there can be no holiday in Puglia without a dish of it.

I offer my guests the opportunity to learn how to make the orecchiette in a cooking class run by a housewife still carry on the tradition of homemade pasta. Besides we can taste them in restaurants offering them in classic versions or in tasty innovative recipes. Check out our week tour of Puglia for more details.