Dark Bread News Today

Through the Olive Branches . Theyre hard to avoid in puglia, a region thats home to 60 million olive trees. Thats one olive tree for every italian in italy. This region is italy at its most elemental simple fresh cuisine thats grown and produced here. Fragrant olive oil, beautiful vegetables, cheeses renowned the world over. Hello. Hello. One focaccia. And durum wheat for pasta and bread. Grazie. Look at that. Im stanley tucci. Im fascinated by my italian heritage, so im traveling across italy t...

>> hello, im in puglia, which is the heel of -- can you see me through the olive branches? >> theyre hard to avoid in puglia, a region thats home to 60 million olive trees. thats one olive tree for every italian in italy. this region is italy at its most elemental -- simple fresh cuisine thats grown and produced here. fragrant olive oil, beautiful vegetables, cheeses renowned the world over. >> hello. >> hello. one focaccia. >> and durum wheat for pasta and bread. >> look at that. >> i...

through the olive branches? >> theyre hard to avoid in puglia, a region thats home to 60 million olive trees. thats one olive tree for every italian in italy. this region is italy at its most elemental -- simple fresh cuisine thats grown and produced here. fragrant olive oil, beautiful vegetables, cheeses renowned the world over. >> hello. >> hello. one focaccia. >> and durum wheat for pasta and bread. grazie. look at that. >> im stanley tucci. im fascinated by my italian heritage, so ...

The fields would be burned to clear the land. >> to prepare fields for the next seeding, any straw left over after harvest used to be cleared by burning it off. >> however, there were always kernels left on the ground which were not picked up properly. >> yeah. >> so the poor people would collect these. >> and with this product? >> they made a poor kind of flour. because it was burned, it didnt have much protein. but you could make bread with it. very simple bread, dark bread. >> dark bread? >> ...

Any simple ingredients it happens to touch. >> and then you can put this oil in all this food. >> friselle being the perfect example. take a dry rusk of bread, throw on a few fresh tomatoes, a healthy glug of your finest puglian olive oil. >> a bit of salt. here is some oregano. >> and there you have it, dry bread magically brought back to life. what could taste out of date tastes out of this world. >> that is really good oil. people can say, oh, our oil this or oh, our oil that. that actually i...

Then you can smell it. >> i didnt know it could be so complicated. >> we take this very seriously. >> then we have to taste it. >> okay. >> but there is a specific way to do it. >> i wont do it. what are you doing? >> in this way, the oil will -- >> aerate. >> yeah, it will aerate. >> aerate. yeah. >> wait. how do you do it? >> you put your tongue up. and then you -- >> yeah, but thats delicious, though. >> the reverence for the trees and what they produce here is akin to that felt towards commu...

>> hello, im in puglia, which is the heel of -- can you see me through the olive branches? >> theyre hard to avoid in puglia, a region thats home to 60 million olive trees. thats one olive tree for every italian in italy. this region is italy at its most elemental -- simple fresh cuisine thats grown and produced here. fragrant olive oil, beautiful vegetables, cheeses renowned the world over. >> hello. >> hello. one focaccia. >> and durum wheat for pasta and bread. >> look at that. >> im stanley ...

Next seeding, any straw left over after harvest used to be cleared by burning it off. >> however, there were always kernels left on the ground which were not picked up properly. >> yeah. >> so the poor people would collect these. >> and with this product? >> they made a poor kind of flour. because it was burned, it didnt have much protein. but you could make bread with it. very simple bread, dark bread. >> dark bread? >> yeah. >> the stigma of having to resort to such extremes would linger for d...

>> and his friend, nicola la grasta has developed a modern technique for recreating it. >> the grain thats completely burned gets discarded. we only use what is toasted. >> right, toasted, not burned. >> so half of it goes. >> toasting the grain is a delicate yet labor-intensive process. >> this is heavy. >> its heavy. >> but it produces a dark flower, which can be used for making bread, as well as the puglian snack taralli, a kind of cross between a cracker and a breadstick. >> taralli made wit...

Through the olive branches? >> theyre hard to avoid in puglia, a region thats home to 60 million olive trees. thats one olive tree for every italian in italy. this region is italy at its most elemental -- simple fresh cuisine thats grown and produced here. fragrant olive oil, beautiful vegetables, cheeses renowned the world over. >> hello. >> hello. one focaccia. >> and durum wheat for pasta and bread. grazie. look at that. >> im stanley tucci. im fascinated by my italian heritage, so im traveli...