Our article (photos by Manoocher & text by Ursula) about the great culinary traditions of the Valle d'Itria has just been published in the Spring Edition 2019 of the National Geographic Traveler Magazine Italy (in Italian). In edicola: Il nostro articolo sulle grandi tradizioni culinarie della Valle d'Itria è stato pubblicato nella rivista National Geographic Traveler (Primavera... Continue Reading →
I just joined the @vawaa_ family! VAWAA (Vacation With An Artist) offers mini apprenticeships with master artists and craftspeople all over the world. You can now book a VAWAA workshop with me and learn about historic cooking for four days. Find out more at https://vawaa.com/artists/ursula-historic-cooking-italy/. Look out for the winter solstice special!
I've been preparing a historic dinner from Ancient Rome, based on recipes from Apicius' cookbook De re coquinaria, with lots of good and organic ingredients from our own soil. Starting with conditum paradoxum, a sweet, wine-based aperitif, some Roman bread baked with bay leaves, moretum - a herb and garlic cream cheese, eggs in ovis... Continue Reading →
This year's wine harvest for a refreshing blend of Bianco d'Alessano, Verdeca and Malvasia bianca. An extraordinarily humid summer and some ugly hail have caused quite some damage, especially as we like to keep fungicides to an absolute minimum. But that's nature. We have to do some more work sorting out bad grapes. Cat Frodo... Continue Reading →
It is unclear why the water in which this fish is simmered is considered to be crazy. It might be due to the chillies that give this dish a spicy tang, or due to the fact that the water is actually mostly wine. These considerations apart, this dish is a simple and extremely easy recipe... Continue Reading →
A medieval dinner featuring Apulian ingredients: A meat and mushroom pie, crepes with chicken cooked in spiced wine with apples, vegetables, fire roasted onions with verjuice and olive oil, cheese, pears poached in red wine, and bread baked from home grown wheat. Not to forget the wine, of course.
It looked more like a weed field but it actually was a wheat field: Now we, well, a neighbour with his tractor, to be honest, harvested our first wheat. Looking forward to bake my first bread out of homegrown wheat, with sourdough, of course!
Who actually made the first wine? And where? Several Middle Eastern and Caucasus countries have been competing for the oldest traces of winemaking, even China is among the top five. But let's start from the beginning: Answering the question of the cradle of winemaking depends on how you define wine. A 9,000 year old residue... Continue Reading →
What shall we do with lots and lots of apricots? Apart from the obvious jam and dried apricots (here drying on an old bed frame), we are making fruit rolls. After a few hours of pruning, I blend all the fruits with a mixer, add nothing at all, spread the pulp out on trays and... Continue Reading →
