The Mediterranean Olive Oil Road

“Consume what you love.  Our goal as a school has never been trying to talk anyone out of going where all the other tourists go, but rather to offer something stellar to those that seek something else. ”

Silvestro Silvestori

I learned out about the Awaiting Table and Silvestro Silvestori when a faculty at Evergreen heard I would be in the Salento for my capstone project. Silvestro has an extensive education in teaching, languages, art, wine, oil, food and one of his many degrees comes from The Evergreen State College – and he produces olive oil among the many many things he does.  Perfect! So I called him up and I am so happy I did.

We started our Mediterranean Fish Course at the fish market. The thing about fish markets here is that they don’t smell like you’d think they would. It is so fresh it smells like the sea, salt and mist and waves not a hint of the fishy smell I so detest. Lecce is located directly between the Adriatic and Ionian seas, historically it was not easy to get seafood here, the gracing lands turned to olive trees thousands of years ago and so it is a traditionally vegetarian diet. This has changed in the past century or so with faster transportation and refrigeration and seafood has been added to the still primarily vegetarian Leccisian diet making it famously healthy and unbelievably delicious. Here is where you get to have your cake and eat it too.  

Silvestro taught us about the history and workings of the seafood markets here in Lecce. He taught us how to spot the freshest of the options in the market, one of which is to cultivate a relationship with your fish monger!  We bought sea bass, muscles and squid, all fresh that day.

 . . . we teach about the food and wine of the Salento or Southern Puglia, which is arguable some of the best food and wine in all of Italy. What isn’t arguable, is that it’s the healthiest. The diet here is actually protected by UNESCO. It’s Italy’s soul food.

Silvestro Silvestori

With our woven market baskets provided by the school we walked with our catch through the city, stopping briefly here and there to learn about the food and history of the city. It was great to talk with Silvestro about life and art and Italy, to talk with the other guests and get to know about why people are traveling, where in the world they come from and talking of food, our relationships to it and what it looks like and means in our little parts of the world. I love this discovering part; it’s why I am here and why I am doing what I am doing, and it doesn’t get better than strolling through a beautiful Italian city while doing it.  I was very excited to meet a woman and her daughter on this tour, she is from a city just north of where I live and works with a wonderful seed company and the Culinary Breeding Network – both organizations doing wonderful work for food diversity and education – and has worked with and knows some of my colleagues at school. It truly is a small world.

We made our way to the market at Porto Rudiea and there was Cesare my friend! I was able to share with my tour group what I have been cooking and learn some new vegetable and options from Silvestro. We learned about foraged foods, a theme that has been running through the food landscapes I’ve visited so far. We purchased wild chicory – la Chicora Salvatica, and popolino and artichokes, Caroselli a melon that tastes like a cucumber, the brightest tomatoes for the pasta, fresh parsley and we could not pass up the plump spring strawberries.  

The Awaiting Table is a labyrinth of colorful and artful rooms one after the other leading the way to the kitchen and workroom, the old stable room in the back expertly redesigned.  The bright hued walls and shelves are covered with every cooking utensil you’d ever need to prepare a meal – design and function at it’s best. As you look closer you can see the old stable; the trough with big iron rings to tie a horse, the huge barn doors out the back and high star vaulted ceilings. It is a cheerful and inviting place to enliven your senses and wake you up to food.

We gathered at the large bench and got to work. Each of us taking turn in the prepping of our meal; peeling and shucking and cleaning, I was in my happy place, in my element. All the while Silvestro guided us not only in what to do with our knives but why we were doing it; and most importantly the connection it has to this place – why the foods we are eating and the way we are preparing them has developed over centuries of people using what this land has to offer. It was multifaceted, smooth and easy and wonderful.

We made pasta and learned the traditional mixture of wheat and barley flour, unique to this area and full of nutrients, flavor and texture, dense and wholesome yet light earthy and sweet. We made Cappelletti Messicani, translated means Mexican Hats which are typical in the south of the Salento.  Here le orecchiette reigns supreme which you can learn in a weeklong course here – for time and taste’s sake we made these delicious morsels.

Once we finished the food prep, we made our way to the warm and inviting dining room. Chalkboard ready, pink wine poured and red, yellow and blue olive oil bottles set out, we were ready for more on the story of the Salento.

Silvestro is a wine sommelier and an olive oil sommelier, sufficed to say he knows wine and olive oil.  A child of Italian parents, born in the US he moved to Italy at 17, living in many regions, teaching and working in the food sphere before settling here in Lecce and opening the Awaiting Table over 20 years ago.  His is a skilled teacher and a wealth of knowledge beyond his years.  His love for the land, food, history and people here is palpable and it is an easy joy learning from him.

The wine was stellar, I particularly loved the negroamaro.  Salento is the cradle of Italian rose and the wines we tasted, all rosé, were made within 50KM of Lecce.

Olive Oil – Silvestro is also an olive oil sommelier having studied and passed certification for tasting here in Italy. I cannot wait to take my certification I have fallen in love with the complexity and balanced simplicity of olive oil – and the drama, yes there is drama. Silvestro produces his own three oils all single varietals – Favolsosa, Coratina and Peranzana.  All are wonderfully balanced. The olive industry is undergoing some renovations.  Corruption and lack of transparency have created a rancid industry, and you are not getting what you pay for at the grocery store – that Italian olive oil may not be oil grown in Italy and may not even be 100% olive oil, and then there’s the problem with freshness. The industry worldwide is rife with issues. There are many producers out there like Silvestro who are creating systems to combat this.  His bottles are covered with QR codes where you can follow the process of the oil from tree to table, it is a fun journey and you can follow it on his website, head over to the Awaiting Table, sign up for a class, buy some olive oil, watch his fantastic short movies, fall in love with the Salento.   

Then we ate – always my favorite part.   For each course one of us would head to the kitchen to cook with Anna – Silvestro’s skilled and fabulous partner, she really could run the world. We ate Artichokes or Carciofi in Italian, greens, Caroselli dressed in lemon and olive oil, squid quickly sauteed with olive oil and salt. Muscles grilled over a very hot cast iron then wine, garlic, parsley and olive oil added to finish. 

I do not like shellfish. I will eat an oyster or two but it’s just not my thing, I don’t go crazy over them.  This is the first time in my life I ate the whole bowl and I could have had another. They were amazing, meaty with the gentlest salt from the sea. It was one of those dishes where you are afraid to order it elsewhere afraid it will never measure up – I will have fun trying though. 

The pasta came to the table coated with tomatoes, olive oil and parsley, it was nutty and light and delicious. It was my turn to join Anna in the kitchen to try our hand at the sea bass. Whole, no seasoning just a scorching hot grill.  We don’t cook whole fish enough at home, we have access to it living in the PNW and I will be adding it to my rotation.  It was easy and wonderfully simple; hot grill, serve and ecco (this is the Italian version of voilà)!  Silvestro deftly taught us how to debone a small fish at the table and ecco it was easy. Then a pour of mild olive oil, a pinch of salt and it was heaven – tender, flavorful delicate and so delicious.

We talked and ate and drank and enjoyed every minute, finishing the meal with fresh strawberries dipped in Saba a lightly sweet syrup of concentrated grapes, it’s like a cross between balsamic and chocolate sauce, I could drink the stuff.  Every dish was so simple yet more flavorful and satisfying than simplicity would dictate.

We finished the day with a walk back to St Oranzo square and said goodbye to our new friends. Full and satiated and a bit tipsy Silvestro and I sat in the square and he generously answered a million questions I had about olives and oil and life and how to move to Italy.

(I will get back to olive oil in a minute)

There are times you arrive in a place, and though everything is overwhelmingly new to the senses it just feels right, comfortable. Maybe it’s the warm golden glow of the buildings, maybe the slow relaxed pace of the people I can’t pinpoint why and I don’t need to, it felt like the right place to be.   

Lecce is a great city to get lost in. The Centro Historico is large enough to wander endlessly and small enough to get lost without getting lost. Small winding streets that pop out into palazzos and ornate baroque churches,  it’s the perfect place to grab a gelato and walk about listening to the singsong of Italian and gazing up. Oh Italy!

Though I love eating out I knew on this trip I would cook for myself as much as possible, not only for budgets sake but I find you get a better sense of locality when you do. For me it is a thrill to navigate a market; the challenge of a language barrier, learning what grows there and what people eat, it is a slice of culture, history and life all in one place.  The first thing I do when I visit a new place is locate the daily market and here it is Mercato Porto Rudiae. It is a few centuries old and if you didn’t know it was there you would miss it. Sitting just outside of the old city walls, the entrance almost blocked by local old men chatting and smoking it is small and unassuming.  

On the very first day I met who I now call my produce guy, Cesare.  He gently reprimanded me for touching most of the produce – that is reserved for the vegetable monger not the customer, we became friends. Everyday I would make my way to the market and practice a little Italian and he would practice a little English. He offered what was local, fresh and foraged and always a nudge at how it should be prepared. I still can’t believe I did not take one photograph of the delicious foods I made, ironically it’s when the food is amazing and I am so enthralled by it that I don’t think to take a picture.  

It was popolino season, I will never be able to say that word without an Italian accent it, rolls off the tongue in the most comforting way. I cherish my greens and by goddess Italians know how to do greens. I gorged on them, sautéed with a bit of garlic, salt and a healthy pour of olive oil was all they needed. I bought wild chicories and dandelion and mystery foraged greens I don’t remember the name for. I cooked them simply paired with fresh mozerella and crusty bread. I ate so many vegetables (and cheese, so much cheese). Healthy whole foods are very affordable here compared to home. By my calculations, though not perfect they can give you a good idea, I spent about $1 for every $3-4 I would spend at a farmers market in Seattle. It was less expensive to get fresh, organic local produce at a market or Ape (more on those gems later) than it was for conventional grocery store produce. Disclaimer – I have not done research on this, it is just my experience and it was definitely my experience through most of Italy. I was never far from a daily fresh market that provided a daily walk, social connection and healthy affordable food.  Italy has secured itself into my heart.

The churches of Lecce are a stunning and a beautiful example of Baroque architecture and  wandering through the many many of them is worth the visit itself. Barocco Leccese Architecture or Boroque Lecce flourished here in the 17^th and 18^th centuries. There are 20 churches, 2 Basilicas and 1 Duomo in the historical center alone. The local stone used in building here is Lecce Stone, a soft honey hued limestone that is easy to carve and glows in the morning sunrise and evening sunset.

The churches are almost overwhelming to visit and every inch is chiseled with ornate movement; gilded cherubs, sensuous pomegranates bursting open, mythical creatures and exuberant animals – it is drama and tension and grandeur. I could spend hours reveling in every detail.

Lecce is famous for papier-mâché or Cartepest as it is called here. For centuries it has been used to adorn churches and private homes. The movement and expression of these works is brilliant and they come to life in front of you. As you wander through the streets you can see the workshops with bits and pieces of unfinished works hanging from ceilings and walls.

In the few weeks I spent here I fell more in love everyday with its ebbs and flows and my balance was restored from the hectic culture of home. I have this unique opportunity where I am not on vacation per say; I am still working, studying, have deadlines and meetings and laundry and cleaning and shopping – all within a different culture where I get to experience daily routine within a new context. This place affords a vibrant life where the basics; beauty, love, family and health are baked into everyday tasks. I can breathe again, I fit into this life, the rhythms here are natural for me.

I have been dreaming of Italy. As one that loves food and people and land and beauty and the way they all mix, I have romanticized this moment beyond what I think any place can live up to, my usual modus operandi given my insatiable imagination. I step off the plane, feet on the ground, wind on my face. I made it. I live for this moment of reckoning.

My first bite, a train station café breakfast, was a spinach ricotta pastry and cappuccino. They were both perfect and divine as expected and I ate with a grin on my face. Italy respects its food, it is loved and cared for, mediocrity is not tolerated, even in the train station. This might be my place.

I will spend the next 4 weeks traveling through the heel of Italy’s boot; the Salento. I am here to immerse myself in the land of ancient olive trees, more than 350,000 of them are here.  Lecce lies at the southern end of the heel sandwiched between the Adriatic and Ionian Seas. Boasting the largest concentration of monumental olive trees in Italy and producing over 40% of its olive oil. A tree is considered monumental when its trunk has a circumference of 3.5 Meters (11.48 Feet) at 1.3 Meters (4.265 Feet) from the ground. Thousands of the trees in this region are thousands of years old. Most planted by the Romans in their never ending quest for gold – some planted by the Messapian people before them.  

The train heads south from Bari following the coast of the Adriatic Sea, I can’t wait to get my feet into that cobalt water. Whisking along I begin to see them – row after row of huge twisted old olive trees. I am entranced by the color contrast of silver sage leaves against the blue, the tropical green of the occasional fig tree and the gigantic size of prickly pear cacti lining the rails.  I have a recurring excitement well up in me as I watch the trees go by; how am I here – the place I have read and researched and created in my mind? It is real and surreal.

As we got closer to Lecce the big, silver- green canopies turn to skeletons. Entire fields of grey branches, dead after centuries of care and life and gold. I knew about the devastation the olive trees in the Salento faced when a bacterium, Xylella Fastidioso, began decimating the orchards here a few years ago. Seeing the grey ghosts in person hit me harder than I expected, I can only imagine the heartbreak of the people here. I take note to be gentle with my inquiries.

Lecce, the “Florence of the South”, is my first destination. I’ve never been to Florence, or any Italian city for that matter. Other than the dreams of grandeur I’ve created in my head I am a blank slate in Italy.