Italy has a hard time keeping savory food salty. With sweet boiled dumplings and plums stuffed inside potato dough, they are so on to something many outside Europe would be skeptical of trying. Torta di Latticini alla Lucana is "technically" a savory pie with ricotta, pecorino and saliccia but with the addition of sugar, I'm not sure what it's best for. Maybe breakfast? Regardless, it's tasty, and I guess it could mimic a sweeter version of pizza rustica.

People once hid in worn down grottos on the cliffside of Matera, housing their donkeys from a day at work while preparing meals in their small kitchens that opened to a room with a bed and one toilet. If there are mountains there are sheep; cheeses like Pecorino filliano or canestrato di moleterno, a basket aged cheese treated with salt, vinegar, oil, and sometimes char water. The cheese is leaner in the winter and fattier in the summer due to the diets of the sheep and goats in different seasons.

There is not a single piece of fish on our table scape here. But, Basilicata is positioned central to greener land that grow pera signora della valle del sinni along with all the land where sheep graze. Italy expands itself out like a jetty, so each region pretty much borders the sea on one perimeter. Basilicata is not one of those  regions, and instead of fish, the greener pastures roam with sheep and herding shepherds.

Minuich is the minimalist pasta of Bastilicata. It's the pasta that looks a bit scrappy yet tastes sort of like candelli pasta. It's this long pasta that one rolls around a metal skewer and pulls off to create a hollow- pressed too tightly- spiral. The tradition of serving this would be with a saucy ragu that soaks up all the tomato bits. It is also great in a tomato sauce of broccoli rape. It was lovely to see someone with such a sweet face cranking out pasta for hours. I wanted so badly to jump in and help her. I hope she is fed the biggest bowl of Minuich at the end of the night. Every night.