01 00 23 12
A warming wind, dry earth, a little rain and in the Mediterranean spring, new shoots reflect the sun.

01 00 37 20
Our tools and traditions develop from our close connection to local weather, topography, plants and animals.

01 00 49 14
Increasingly destructive global corporations sweep away this regional uniqueness and diversity.

01 00 59 11
But these connections, especially with food, are essential to maintain.

01 01 04 11
In this episode we go to the south of Italy’s long peninsula, to the region of Puglia and discover there a healthy resistance.

01 0116 02
500 years of drought; animals wiped our, no butter, milk or cheese…but the resilient people invented a delicious cuisine to sustain their lives and culture. Still today the young actively participate within it.

01 01 49 06
Abele, head gardener at the Masseria Il Frantoio hotel and restaurant, saw his grandparent’s gathering wild herbs. Referred to as ‘the poet of the garden’, he finds in these meadows twelve different edible greens called cicoria.

01 02 16 24
In the Masseria kitchen, Maria cleans Abele’s harvest and from it a vegetarian dish, tasting like iron rich spinach with sweet tomatoes, is slowly cooked.




01 02 32 11
Masserie were farms central to the economy of the countryside. Until the early 20th century much of life was lived by the owners and labourers within the protective walls.

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One of the most prized of the wild things is a bitter onion like bulb found 40 centimetres underground called ‘lampascione’.

01 02 57 19
Locals say: ‘to enjoy lampascione you must dig it yourself’.

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They are cleaned and boiled,

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…cut like a flower,

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…and deep fried.

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Its bitterness is tempered by the Masserie’s orange honey.

01 03 35 22
Broad beans, pride of the area, fresh and young, are boiled in water and pounded with olive oil, making an intense tasting green puree served with a salted cod flan.

01 03 52 06
Another Maria blends the ingredients for a pasta with wild fennel and sautéed poppy leaves…an ancient recipe rediscovered by Rosalba, the inventive co-owner who, like many local people, are re-asserting their regional heritage.

01 04 11 00
Rosalba directs the ‘great dance’ of preparation in the kitchen, as she cuts the flattened dough into shape.

01 04 34 21
Young wheat on the plain of Gioia del Colle…when harvested, perfect for pasta making.
01 04 42 24
At the Pastificio Benagiano, established in 1870, four brothers carry on the family tradition.
Their artisanal pasta is amongst the best in Italy.

01 05 01 16
The dough is slowly blended to preserve the texture while reducing the heat which builds up.
In industrial pasta factories the processing speed and the heat produced often neutralises the tastes.

01 05 13 20
The brothers consult the mill owner to create their own blends of wheat. This yields less flour then commercial pasta makers demand which increases cost. Fortunately many Italians are not prepared to compromise on the quality of their pasta.

01 05 32 05
For up to two days the pasta lies on silk trays surrounded by tepid air.

01 05 41 19
Nunzio, the brother ‘chef’ says it needs to ‘sweat out the humidity’ rather then be dried.
His intuition and experience determines the readiness of the pasta.

01 05 53 20
The dough is shaped by custom-made bronze moulds which leave a unique texture on the surface allowing the pasta to soak up sauces better.

01 06 04 04
Every shape needs a different mould mounted on the machines and each brings its challenges.

01 06 22 21
As the ‘glamour’ of the cities lure their children away, the brothers worry about who will learn ‘the touch’ to carry on the tradition.

01 06 34 24
Ostuni, one of the white towns of Puglia, established before the arrival of the Romans-

01 06 44 04
Here Giovanni Guido and his family sell vegetables from their travelling stall.

01 06 49 17
When the drought killed the animals it created a dependency on wild herbs and local vegetables.

01 06 57 11
‘Experts’, and every person is an expert, demand a taste or two before buying.

01 07 07 20
People know Giovanni goes to his farms at dawn to collect the day’s and season’s choice

01 07 16 06
At sunrise, above the iron rich red earth, the green leaves of cima and stalks of celery shimmer under the dew.

01 07 28 04
Giovanni doesn’t keep any stock: each morning his producers harvest only vegetables that are ripe.
This efficient chain provides the demanding Pugliesi with the freshest possible produce.

01 07 43 23
The broad bean harvest is finished but Giovanni, an admirer, searches for the last remaining pods.

01 07 57 19
Most agri-corporations efficiently make two things: a chemical laden volume of produce and profits but on average it takes 10 tons of fertilizer, herbicide, pesticide, fuel, packaging and other inputs to create one ton of produce…this is not sustainable in an overcrowded and hungry world.
These men work hard to survive but insist on caring for their plants and soil using more experience and less inputs.

01 08 30 04
The morning thickens into day- a spontaneous celebration calls the men together. They eat local cheese, just picked vegetables.
01 08 47 24
They drink the wine through their special celery leaf filter and take in air….

01 08 52 13
…a way to cleanse the digestion.

01 08 59 08
Giovanni’s mother-in-law, Italia, the rock of the family…cooks and cooks often only the luminescent greens from Giovanni’s red earth.
She mixes a light batter,

01 09 13 01
…coats the artichoke hearts,

01 09 21 01
deep fries them to just the right point in the right amount of heat…

01 09 34 12
…and a meal is made.

01 09 49 11
In the village of Ceglie Messapica it is said ‘the finely polished pavement of the square become impatient as the men who hang around, outlast the stones themselves’.

01 10 10 20
On this evening before Easter as the pious celebrate their faith, the men of the square and the bar practice their comradeship in other ways.

01 10 42 20
In the village, Angela took over her father’s Osteria Cibus when she was 17 and still oversees the cooking.

01 10 51 06
Her son Lillino buys the best of the region, dedicated to preserving Puglisi traditions.

01 11 05 11
Vegetables- the Puglisi love of these is seen in every home and restaurant.
01 10 14 17
For another of Angela’s specialities, fresh pasta is boiled. With the meat extracted, a Ragu of lamb, pork and six wild herbs in an aromatic tomato sauce is re-heated; and a strong sour ricotta cheese is swirled in.

01 11 43 11
Before serving, the pasta is folded into the ragu and sprinkled with grated bread fried in olive oil -know as ‘the poor man’s Parmesan’.

01 11 53 08
Lilino knows every person who supply his meats, wines and cheeses. They are local and use traditional methods constantly refreshed by a dialogue between them.

01 12 13 22
Lilino watches over all, touching, smelling, tasting.
Here he coats his cheeses to a bath of oil and white wine to preserve them as they age.

01 12 26 06
A multi award winner for his ‘regional food’, Lilino deserves the vast respect he has gained.

01 12 38 22
Bettino Siciliani acquired a run down Trulli village…a local style of dry wall building no one has fully explained.


In the face of the supermarket’s desire for uniformity and cheapness and corporate pressure for mass production, he raises in the village farm a rare breed of local cows: Podolica believed to have entered the region from the Ukraine following the Hun invasions of the 5th century.

01 13 04 11
The meat is appreciated for its special taste and tenderness. Bettino supplies some of the most demanding butchers and restaurants in the region, including Lilino.

01 13 15 03
Very early morning in Ostuni.

01 13 24 07
Alfonso Masi’s parents were labourers at a dairy farm: he grews up watching their work;

01 13 35 17
…in his late 20s he’s told ‘in Ostuni nobody makes fresh mozzarella’; he opens a shop and factory. His purchase of fresh milk never exceeds 100Kg a day.
Now it’s 15,000 without compromising the quality.

01 13 56 08
In very hot water Antonio stretches the cheese, measuring each by instinct and moulding it into a precise shape and weight.

01 14 11 24
Every machine and cheese maker form the much loved local varieties of Scamorza, Affumicata, Cacio Cavallo, Burrata.

01 14 24 10
This production, like many contemporary Puglisi artisanal endeavours, matches modern machinery with the skills and touch of the craftsmen as here in the making of Burrata.

01 14 35 04
Alfonso believes the hygienic standards imposed on their industry by the European Union are good news; they have helped to produce better cheese.

01 14 45 23
The Adriatic runs along the coast of Puglia, offering the people of the flat plain parallel to the sea, a diminishing amount of fish and sea foods.

01 14 58 12
Industrial pollution and over-fishing have reduced choice and size.

01 15 06 06
Patrizia, the daughter and grand daughter of fishermen, learned from her family how to select and cook sea foods.



01 15 23 03
For Italian cooks like Patrizia, the selection of the best is a serious matter.
In La Gola Di Ciacco, (CHAKKO)a restaurant making delicious honest local food,
Virgin olive oil releases it’s perfumes as it warms dried chilly and then a combination of the just-purchased-day’s-catch are browned and sealed.

01 16 03 14
A fresh tomato sauce is reduced; the dense sweet sautéed fish are added to amalgamate with the tart sauce.
This is peasant food, insistently kept alive...
it is said there is no haute cuisine...there is only la buona cucina-the good kitchen- where the best is good enough.

01 16 22 01
Piero, son of a peasant, owner of the restaurant, brother in law to Patrzizia, he represents a new generation of Puglisi who
understand they need to apply research to keep the traditions alive: soil and the internet; the sea and the web.
Having become an olive oil taster, he said ‘regulations allow industrial olive oil producers to mix a small percentage of local with large quantities of foreign oil then declared to be ‘Olive Oil of Puglia’–he detests this cheating of the public.

01 16 59 19
On the 100 hectares of the Masseria San Domenico, maestro Sante directs a team of expert tree surgeons pruning an 800 years old olive tree.

01 17 10 15
The tree sits on the entrance of a cave used in the Byzantine period as a store for olives. This confirms that they understood the olives must be pressed on the day of harvesting to reduce acidity in the oil.

01 17 26 04
Sante and his team shape the tree to minimize risk of branches breaking or precious flowers, which become the olives, being swept away by the strong North Easterly winds. ‘The tree’, he says, ‘becomes a hand with five fingers to grasp the sun’.

01 17 48 18
Their 100% organic oil is bottled locally. When asked why bother with organic production given that it provides a lower yield, the manager of the Masseria looked confused and said: ‘because it’s the best’.

01 18 02 24
Olive oil embodies memory, tradition, a body of ancestral tastes passed to the next generation...it’s the family jewels treated by the Puglisi with respect for the prosperity of their region which comes from the beautiful trees.

01 18 21 23
At the heart of the Masseria San Domenico hotel, restaurant and farm are the sensitively restored original buildings.

01 18 39 09
In the Masseria kitchen, Head Chef Giuseppe Angelini prepares limoncello, an aperitif made from a base alcohol and lemon leaves and peel picked in their gardens.

01 18 50 07
This is left to steep for 2 weeks and then mixed with a syrup.

01 18 54 10
Maintaining regional specialities is at times an act of economic good sense and at times a rebellion against global habits fostered by the corporate food provisioners, a lack of home grown knowledge…

01 19 07 16
…and timid tourist’s demands for an ‘international’ menu.

01 19 22 07
In the Masserie everything is prepared from primary foods. There are few canned or bottled ingredients to be seen other then those they make themselves including their olive oil.

01 19 42 12
This preparation of focacci, a thin bread base with tomatoes or a vegetable mix is exactly as Giuseppe’s mother would have made…



01 20 07 13
For Giuseppe and his staff it is said that the focacca are so valued, ‘to waste any means one must remain longer in purgatory picking up each crumb with one's eyelashes’.

01 20 23 09
Easter morning in San Marco on the Gargano peninsula.

01 20 33 13
The bakers prepare Propato, a special bread twisted like a wreath of briars, sweetened but tempered with a scattering of bitter spices.

01 20 42 17
It and other breads rise in the wood oven.

01 20 54 23
Outside a cold spring wind, inside tiredness takes its toll as the morning wears on.

01 21 13 20
Before Easter dawn the devout carry the Madonna from church to church as she searches for her lost son…this ritual, as social as it may be religious…binds the community.

01 2135 07
On the hills above the town, at the Azienda Biologica Agrituristica restaurant, a celebration of the passing of winter displayed in the preserved and dried ingredients and in the rough peasant bread.

01 21 48 12
Inside Chef Tonino Trematore prepares a lunch to honour the day.

01 22 02 10
With the temper of a pirate he demands the dish is served hot.

01 22 15 23
Using his furious energy, he prepares a bagna calda, a warming combination of chilly, bread, garlic and other strong tasting vegetables of the season.




01 22 39 10
This is another peasant dish, surviving because of its stomach warming satisfaction and because Puglisi like the chef believe in the integrity of their traditional dishes.

01 22 52 11
As the guests enjoy the food flowing from the kitchen, he throws himself into the preparation of a fish pasta.

01 23 24 21
Finally the night arrives for which many people have been planning. The Fracchie (Frakkeeaye) or cone shape wooden constructions, built by each neighbourhood, are hauled though the streets, burning brightly to illuminate the way for the still searching Virgin mother to find her lost son.

01 24 11 07
These rituals- creating special foods and illuminating the darkness take place in many Puglisi communities. These are living traditions, not demonstrations for tourists.

01 24 36 06
When the growing and making of food, symbols of communal tradition, become remote, this alienation destroys people’s sense of place and being; but the Puglisi, with their passion for these things and their ability to adapt- as they did to the 500 year drought- have withstood the sweep of corporate globalism which imposes ‘one taste for one world’.

Text quote:
“to lay waste to nature as if it were other thana part of us is to recreate a wasteland within ourselves…
Professor Jules Pretty