Lucanian flavours: a guide to Basilicata food, area by area

Lucanian cooking is peasant and mountain food: few ingredients, lots of flavour. Durum wheat, pulses, garden vegetables, olive oil, sheep and goat cheeses, cured meats and the peperone crusco, the crunchy dried pepper that has become the symbol of the region. In Basilicata every valley has its own products and recipes: in this guide you’ll find the PDO and PGI specialities, the dishes to try and, above all, where to taste them, area by area.

Basilicata’s PDO and PGI products

• Pane di Matera PGI: durum wheat bread with a thick crust and a horn shape. Area: Matera e la Murgia.
• Peperone di Senise PGI: a sweet, thin-skinned pepper, sun-dried in strings called serte and, once fried, turned into crusco. Area: the Sinni valley, in the Parco del Pollino.
• Fagiolo bianco di Rotonda PDO and Melanzana rossa di Rotonda PDO: a white bean and a red aubergine unique to the Mercure valley. Area: Parco del Pollino.
• Canestrato di Moliterno PGI: a sheep’s cheese aged in Moliterno’s cellars, the fondaci. Area: Val d’Agri.
• Fagioli di Sarconi PGI: many bean varieties grown in the upper Agri valley. Area: Val d’Agri.
• Pecorino di Filiano PDO: a hard sheep’s cheese with a bold flavour. Area: Potenza e dintorni.
• Lucanica di Picerno PGI: the Lucanian sausage, with wild fennel and pepper. Area: Potenza e dintorni.
• Vulture PDO extra virgin olive oil: from the olive groves on the volcano’s slopes. Area: Vulture-Melfese.
• Olio Lucano PGI: extra virgin olive oil from the whole region.
• Caciocavallo Silano PDO: a stretched-curd cheese also made in many Lucanian towns.
• Lenticchia di Altamura PGI: lentils also grown in the Matera towns on the border with Apulia. Area: Matera e la Murgia.

Then there are the Slow Food Presidia, protecting rare products: caciocavallo podolico, from the milk of free-grazing Podolica cows; pezzente della montagna materana, a humble cured sausage made from the less noble cuts of pork; and the oliva da forno di Ferrandina, the oven-baked majatica olive.

Flavours area by area

Matera and the Murgia

In Matera you eat durum wheat bread, August’s crapiata (a soup of pulses and wheat), cialledda, orecchiette and crunchy peppers. In the bakeries of the centre and the restaurants of the Sassi, peasant cooking is at home even in the most elegant places. Around the city, the fields of the Murgia and the Bradano give wheat, pulses and lentils. Open the Matera e la Murgia area or our Matera guide.

Collina Materana and the Basento valley

In the villages of the Unione dei Comuni della Collina Materana you’ll find black pork salumi, pezzente, caciocavallo podolico, hand-made pasta such as strascinati and ferretti, and the flavours of village feasts. In the Valle del Basento, at Ferrandina, the majatica olive is eaten oven-baked, a speciality you won’t find elsewhere.

Metapontino and the Ionian coast

The Metapontino plain is Basilicata’s vegetable garden and orchard: strawberries, apricots, peaches, citrus fruit, table grapes and vegetables. Pisticci is the home of Amaro Lucano, the best-known Lucanian liqueur. On the coast there’s Ionian fish and beach restaurants; inland, in Tursi and Montalbano, the peasant cooking of the hills.

Maratea and the Noce valley

In Maratea the cooking is seafood: oily fish, shellfish, pasta with anchovies and the catch of the day in the harbour restaurants. Just climb into the Noce valley, to Trecchina, Rivello and Lagonegro, and you’re back to mountain food, with mushrooms, chestnuts, cheeses and meat.

Pollino Park

The Pollino is the land of the most famous pulses and vegetables: Rotonda’s white bean and red aubergine and the Senise pepper. In the mountains you eat porcini mushrooms, chestnuts, lamb and kid, caciocavallo podolico and rafanata, an omelette with horseradish. In the Arbëreshë villages of San Paolo and San Costantino Albanese you’ll find recipes of Albanian origin.

Val d’Agri

The Val d’Agri has canestrato di Moliterno, Sarconi beans, the wines of the Terre dell’Alta Val d’Agri and Grottino di Roccanova DOCs, and mountain cooking of fresh pasta, pulses, lamb and salumi. It’s one of the best areas for a food trip among dairies, wineries and farms.

Potenza, the Lucanian Dolomites and Marmo Platano

Around Potenza come lucanica di Picerno and pecorino di Filiano; in the city try ragù alla potentina, with rolled meat slowly cooked in the sauce. In the Dolomiti Lucane and the Marmo Platano e Melandro the cooking is mountain food: mushrooms, truffles, chestnuts, cheeses and grilled meat, and lamb cutturiddi.

Vulture-Melfese and Alto Bradano

The Vulture is the land of Aglianico del Vulture, the great Lucanian red, with wine cellars dug into the tuff at Rionero, Barile and Rapolla; it also produces Vulture PDO olive oil, chestnuts and mineral waters. In the Alto Bradano wheat becomes bread and pasta, and at Pietragalla you can visit the palmenti, ancient caves for pressing grapes.

Dishes to try

• Lagane e ceci: wide noodles with chickpeas, the region’s oldest pasta dish.
• Strascinati, cavatelli, orecchiette and ferretti: hand-made pasta with meat sauce, turnip tops or crunchy peppers and breadcrumbs.
• Peperoni cruschi: flash-fried in oil, crumbled over pasta or salt cod, or eaten on their own.
• Salt cod with peperoni cruschi: a festive dish in many villages.
• Ciambotta: a summer stew of peppers, potatoes, aubergines and tomato.
• Acquasale and cialledda: soups and salads of stale bread, born so nothing goes to waste.
• Pignata and cutturiddi: lamb or mutton slow-cooked in a terracotta pot.
• Ragù alla potentina and rafanata, the omelette with grated horseradish.

Sweets and liqueurs

• Calzoncelli: fried sweet ravioli filled with chestnuts or chickpeas and chocolate, typical of Christmas.
• Scarcella: the Easter cake, often with a whole boiled egg.
• Copete, mostaccioli and strazzate: almond and honey biscuits.
• Amaro Lucano and home-made rosolio liqueurs to end the meal.

Wines

The king is Aglianico del Vulture, DOC and, in its Superiore version, DOCG. There are also the Matera, Terre dell’Alta Val d’Agri and Grottino di Roccanova DOCs, and Basilicata IGT wines from grapes such as malvasia, moscato and greco.

Where to taste them

• At food festivals (sagre), especially in summer and autumn: find them in the Ebas events calendar.
• At the farms, dairies and wineries in the Local products section.
• In the restaurants, trattorias and agriturismi of Where to eat.
• With “Plan your trip” you can put together a food itinerary, area by area.