They have become a tourist trend in the city of Bariin the Italian region of Apulia, in the southeast of the country. This part of the Italian heel spire has come to the fore in recent years for a long-preserved tradition that has become a treasure trove for travelers.

These are housewives, in the old part of Barimanually making the peculiar orecchiette. This pasta, typical of Apulia and shaped like a small ear – hence the name – has become a tourist and advertising attraction and, also, a potential public health problem.

Furthermore, there are many Italian media that have not only echoed the boom in profitability that these ladies, of advanced age, have achieved on social networks, becoming a media phenomenon that dazzles the tourists who crowd the old town of Bari. , stopping in front of their tables while they hand-craft their orecchiette, concentrating especially on Arco Basso street

By hand and artisanally? It seems that, according to local research, published in The Gazzetta del Mediogiorno Not all the pasta is made by hand, much less is it artisanal. In this sense, this regional newspaper warns that boxes of orecchiette industrial workers in some of the garbage cans near Vecchia Bari, as the area is known.

The evidence suggests that names of pasta manufacturers in the area have been discovered on the sender, as well as addresses of the recipients and even packaging on which the concept appears. tricolor orecchiettewhich would reveal that industrial pulp is penetrating the city center and being sold, with a change of packaging, to visitors as authentic homemade pasta.

It is not, furthermore, the only battle that is dotting the streets of Bari. Nor is it the only one in which the city council of this city of more than 300,000 inhabitants is involved, which has seen how tourism has set its sights on a centuries-old tradition, but which is failing in terms of public health.

The Bari town council has held several meetings to convince pasta makers that they must comply with the hygienic-sanitary standards which, among other things, would prevent pasta from being made on the street.

However, the municipal authorities would try to give food safety training for womenas well as creating a guarantee mark within the town that would allow proving the origin of the product.

While the controversy over the origin of pasta shakes the city, the city council of the capital of Apulia seeks how to legislate without uprooting a tradition that, in view of the circumstances, is giving many benefits to the area.

Images | Instagram Avaj Grad

In DAP | Orecchiette alla pugliese

In DAP | Italian cuisine