Pane di Matera

Appearance & taste

The bread has a horn shape or a tall shape and weighs 500 g to 10 kg. The crust is at least 3 mm thick, and the crumb is straw-yellow with a typical, very uneven structure of holes of different sizes. The specification describes its taste and smell as extremely characteristic; it sets ranges on a rating scale for the acidic and toasted aroma, the acidic taste and the crispness of the crust.

Before baking, every loaf is marked with a stamp that presses the capital letters “MT” into the upper half. According to the specification, the bread keeps for at least a week.

Production

Only finely ground durum wheat semolina and/or semolina flour with set values for protein, yellow index, moisture and ash is used. At least 20 % of it must come from local ecotypes and old wheat varieties such as Cappelli, Duro Lucano, Capeiti and Appulo grown in the province of Matera; semolina from genetically modified organisms is not permitted. Per 100 kg of semolina there are 20 to 30 kg of sourdough, 2 to 3 kg of salt, 75 to 85 l of water and 0.5 to 1 kg of baker’s yeast.

All steps take place in the province of Matera, including packing in micro-perforated film or paper bags, so that as little time as possible passes between baking and packing. If the bread was baked in a wood-fired oven, the label may carry the addition “pane cotto in forno a legna”.

Origin & history

The area comprises the entire province of Matera. According to the specification, the surroundings influence the bread in several ways: through the wheat from the hills around Matera with their clayey soils and an average annual rainfall of 350 mm, through the sourdoughs, for which fruit is traditionally used as well, and through the wood for the traditional wood-fired ovens.

According to the specification, the tradition of bread baking goes back to the Kingdom of Naples and further. In 1857 there were four milling businesses in Matera, and in 1884 the first industrial mill opened with around 50 workers. Every farmhouse had a stone mortar for grinding the wheat. Later the women took their home-made bread to public ovens carved out of the rock and fired mainly with wood from the Mediterranean maquis. So that each family could recognise its bread, it was stamped with the initials of the head of the family before baking; after about three hours the tall round loaves with a golden crust came out of the oven. In 1857 Pietro Antonio Ridola counted eleven ovens; between 1959 and 1965 there were 15.