Puglia is the succulent, thin and salty strip of land lapped by two seas, the Adriatic and the Ionian, the sexy high heel of Italy’s ‘boot’. The food is widely considered among Italy’s best, not for its complicated recipes so much as its pristine and wholesome ingredients, and cleaver applications of the so-called ‘Mediterranean diet’, which only a fraction of Italy actually eats. Puglia’s southern portion is known as the Salento or the Salentine peninsula, a distinct sub-region with a cultural, viticulture and cuisine all its own. Enogastronomic tourism in the Salento remains one of Italy’s best kept domestic secrets, with very few foreigners even aware of its existence.
