Matera Bread Guide

An original shape, a firm consistency, a unique flavor: it is the bread of Matera. Because, it must be said, among the many qualities of excellent bread that Italy produces, that of Matera certainly deserves a mention of honor. Always a symbol par excellence of the Città dei Sassi, this IGP product (Protected Geographical Indication) perfectly summarizes the products that the land of Basilicata can offer: from the purity of the source water to the quality of the Lucanian wheat right up to the right cooking that gives it the crunchiness of the crust leaving the interior softer.

The panel was one of the central elements of nutrition, since the most ancient times. His production was a real important, punctuated by different phases. The first was the recovery of the mother yeast, preserved from the last bakery, and the formation of the dough, which leavened in a container of clay. The next morning the dough is left to rise. At that point the famous bread was brought to the kitchen, directly from the baker. The women then went to the oven, where they carefully followed the table of their bread: to recognize it, inside the public ovens, they marked it with hardwood stamps. The cross cut on the top of the loaf, on the other hand, was used to promote leavening.

Emblem of the poor and peasant cuisine, the cialleda is a classic example of the ability of the old generations to make a virtue of necessity. In order to save the waste bread, it thus combined a seasonal vegetation, becoming a substantial and rich meal. The cold cialledda, also known as "reaper's breakfast", helped the Lucani farmhands to start their day's work on the fields. The hot version was instead an evening and winter dish, prepared from time to time offering the vegetable garden.