La cucina salentina: fra i piatti della tradizione

Food may be considered a cultural identity vehicle, this because in the course of time several symbols, messages and significances concerning nutrition models went beyond its mere nutritive sense. This research aspires to catch Salento's culinary identity, enhancing its typicalness and higlighting its mediterranean features. It starts with an overview on the typical Salento's recipes, reviews traditional products (bread, typical “Friselle”, dried figs) and local family cooking uses, until focusing the definition of Mediterranean Diet as a nutritive model strongly based on bread, olive oil and wine. Therefore culinary identity should be minded as a dynamic entity since it was shaped several times by the different mixed cultures in past. Food is the a condensation of several knowledges, traditions, methods; Places, climate, social and economic conditions, religious rules have , in the course of time influenced types, quantities and tastes of food. Last but not least must be considered the relevant convivial aspect of eating. UNESCO in 2010 stated Mediterranean Diet as immaterial World Heritage , describing it as “permanent in time and space”. This research analyzes its continue contaminations by different civilizations, each with their own typical food from all over the world.