Traditional fishing on the Ugento shoals

History and origin

The shoals of Ugento have been known for a long time. Plutarch, in his life of Pyrrhus, tells how after a storm the ship of the king of Epirus ran aground in these very shallows, off the harbour that bears the name of this Salento town.

Fishing in this stretch of the Ionian Sea is in the hands of artisanal fishermen who know the area's treacherous seabed thoroughly. They are heirs to a centuries-old tradition, made of techniques that respect the sea and the biological cycles of the species, and of knowledge of the seabed, fish behaviour and the environment handed down from generation to generation.

The Slow Food Presidium, created as part of a project devoted to the Salento, brings together the fishermen of a cooperative in Torre San Giovanni, Ugento's seaside hamlet. It aims to preserve those techniques and that knowledge, and at the same time to support all small-scale fishing in the Mediterranean, by promoting new marine protected areas and the use of nets with wider mesh than the law requires.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Pesca tradizionale delle secche di Ugento

Area and method of production

The fishing area covers the sea off the coast between Torre Pali and Torre Mozza, up to about three miles off Torre San Giovanni. The seabed is very shallow and dotted with shoals: within a short distance the depth drops from five metres to seventy centimetres, and this is where the fishermen's experience makes the difference.

The Presidium's fishermen work six boats of about twelve metres and have made sustainable fishing their banner. They use traditional set nets such as trammel and gill nets, together with pots, longlines and hand lines. Each species has its own kind of net, with a different mesh size: this selectivity is what makes the fishing sustainable, because only what is sought is caught.

Fishing goes on all year round, following the seasons of the sea. The work depends not only on the gear but on knowledge of the seabed, of the behaviour of the species and of natural cycles.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Pesca tradizionale delle secche di Ugento

How to recognise it

The catch from the shoals changes with the seasons, and that very variety is its hallmark. Autumn and winter bring mackerel, bluefish, amberjack, Atlantic bonito, barracuda, grey mullet, bullet tuna and cuttlefish. Between summer and autumn it is the time of dentex, sea bream, gilthead bream and sea bass. In spring the nets bring in octopus and red mullet.

This is fish from small-scale coastal fishing, caught with selective nets over shallow seabeds known inch by inch, and landed by the same fishermen who caught it. The Presidium does not protect a single species, but a way of fishing and the bond between a community and its stretch of sea.

Buying it means choosing by season: visitors to Torre San Giovanni in spring will more easily find octopus and red mullet, while in summer gilthead and sea bream prevail.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Pesca tradizionale delle secche di Ugento

In the kitchen

Octopus, which the nets on the shoals bring in mainly in spring, is the star of one of the most widespread recipes of the Salento coast, polpo alla pignatta, listed among Puglia's traditional products. The octopus is beaten and rubbed until it loses its sliminess, then cut into pieces and slowly cooked in an earthenware pot with tomatoes, plenty of onion, parsley, extra virgin olive oil and black pepper, almost only in its own juices. A Salento saying recalls that the octopus cooks in its own water. One variant adds potatoes halfway through.

The rest of the catch finds its way into the traditional fish soups, which along the Salento coast are made by adding molluscs, crustaceans and fish to the pot in a precise order, from the firmest to the most tender, and served with home-made bread for dipping.

Sources: PAT Puglia — Polpo alla pignatta · PAT Puglia — Quatàra di Porto Cesareo · Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Pesca tradizionale delle secche di Ugento

Where to taste it

The Presidium's catch can be bought directly from the fishermen when they return to the fishing pier at Torre San Giovanni, Ugento's seaside hamlet: it is the most direct way to get to know this fishing and the people who do it.

Ugento also deserves a stop on land. Its territory runs from an inland area of ancient olive groves and vineyards to a coast of wide white sandy beaches, protected by the Litorale di Ugento regional nature park, which covers about 1,600 hectares. The town centre keeps stretches of its ancient walls, the castle, the Clock Tower, the Cathedral with the diocesan museum in its crypts, and Palazzo Colosso, which holds finds from the sixth century BC to the early Middle Ages.

Just outside the centre visitors can see the Crypt of the Crucifix and the chapel of the Madonna di Costantinopoli. Between sea, nature and history, the Ugento coast is a stretch of the Ionian Salento to enjoy at an easy pace, following the rhythm of the boats.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Pesca tradizionale delle secche di Ugento · Italia.it — Ugento

Protection

• Slow Food Presidium — pesca-tradizionale-delle-secche-di-ugento (Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Pesca tradizionale delle secche di Ugento)

When

• Production: all year round (Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Pesca tradizionale delle secche di Ugento)

Where

Puglia