Is the food all red sauce, Chianti and veal Parmesan?
Far and away, the overwhelming majority of the time, what you think of as the food of the South of Italy, isn’t at all. We don’t serve veal at the school, in any form, mostly because beef has been historically absent in most of the south until very, very recently (MTV has been here longer). Horse, and as often, colt, has been the red meat of choice in Puglia, but we offer this only on request, for the more adventurous groups. Nor do we offer Chianti, if only because the local wine is so good, and well, so local. The most adored pasta sauce in the Salento is green, and it does not contain any basil. Luckily the ‘uneducation’ process is delicious, painless and much, much more fascinating than the fiction.
