Among the most important products of this regional cuisine we find Matera bread, bran peppers, Majatica olive oil, Amaro Lucano, cartellate and many others.
Among the local specialties there are the gnummarieddi, rolls of animal offal; the strazzata, a variety of focaccia made with pepper and oregano; the acquasale, a poor dish made with stale bread, oil, eggs, bran peppers (crunchy) or salami; sweet black pudding, a cream made with pork blood with the addition of ingredients such as vanilla and bitter cocoa; baccalà alla lucana (salt cod with bran peppers); the ciaudedda, stew of artichokes, fresh broad beans, potatoes and bacon; the soppressata and the salame pezzente, recognized traditional agri-food products and the famous lucanica (as the Romans defined this Lucan specialty), which has become, in many northern Italian dialects, luganega, a type of sausage whose name derives from the word Lucania; the white and chicory beans, especially in the Matera area; baked bread, broth with hardened bread and other typical ingredients.
Salt cod with bran peppers
One of the typical ingredients of Lucan cuisine, especially in the Val d’Agri and in the municipalities of the Matera mountains, is horseradish. It is grated on homemade pasta or used as an ingredient of rafanata, an omelette prepared with this type of root.
Another specialty of the region is the peppers (called in dialect, depending on the area, pupacc ‘, p’pruss, puparul’o pap’rign) brans, that is crunchy as already mentioned. They are dried red peppers that are scalded in olive oil, often accompanied by cod or used as a condiment in pasta. Particularly well known are the Senise Peppers, known in the local dialect as the zafaran, which have been awarded the IGP mark.
