Impossible to mistake: when you are in the South of Italy the taste is fantastic. From the tomatoes to the grapes, from the olives to the figs, the great Italian products are also here, fresh and ready to be eaten.
The typical food of Basilicata is indeed simple, based on a few local products, totally and well-mixed in typical and very old traditional dishes .Truly a symbol of Basilicata is what is locally known as diavolicchio (little devil). The tastiest sauces are full of chilly pepper (peperoncino).
Interesting and nutritious is the panella, big bread forms made with flour and boiled potatoes. Are you ready to taste a table full of exquisite sauces and homemade pasta, kneaded with the rasola or the cavarola (a blade and a small chopping board, respectively) and the maccarunara. A must is the minuich and tria, incredible types of pasta.
As for the mains we have pancotto, a soup with toasted bread and eggs.
Vegetables are important in the Basilicata cousine, and are used to create a wide range of tasty specialities, spiced with an abundant quantity of peperoncino. We can mention vegetable calzone, ciammotta (fried potatoes, peppers and eggplants with tomato sauce), cialledda, with broad beans, potatoes and artichokes, and lampaggioni salad.
A superb vegetable dish is the piatto d’erbe alla lucana (Basilicata style vegetable dish), which is made with onions, eggplants, peppers, tomatoes, garlic, basil and parsley cooked together and seasoned with olive oil.
Following tradition, the people of Basilicata often eat lamb dishes, like cazmarr, a meat loaf made with offal (called gnumaredd in dialect) and cutturiddi, a sort of lamb stew.
Another typical dish is lamb’s head, which is baked and seasoned with oregano and pecorino. Lucanica is a famous meat dish; it is a sausage made with lean pork meat, prepared in many different ways, without additives.
