The typical food of Basilicata, simple and fragrant, is entirely based on few local products, wisely combined in typical and very old traditional dishes.
The most important product is certainly durum wheat home-made pasta, kneaded with ancient tools like therasola, the cavarola (a blade and a small chopping board, respectively) and the maccarunara. Just the skill and mastery of the housewives is needed to make other types of pasta, like minuich and tria. The tastiest sauces cannot go without hot pepper, the real symbol of cuisine in Basilicata, locally known as diavolicchio (little devil).
Panella, big bread loaves made with flour and boiled potatoes, and pancotto, a soup with toasted bread and eggs, are two typical dishes made with bread, another common ingredient in this area. 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, a sausage made with lean pork meat, prepared in many different ways, without additives.
Vegetables are widely used in Basilicata too, and offer a wide range of tasty dishes spiced with a hint of hot pepper. We can mention vegetable calzone, ciammotta (fried potatoes, peppers and eggplants with tomato sauce), ciaudedda, 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.