Altamura bread

Deepening:

History
Traditional working progress
Traditional shapes
DOP denomination

The traditional bread-making progress

The traditional bread-making of Altamura is characterized by a creative relationship between hands and dough, which put off to a symbolic and cultural universe.

In this working process men and women have different roles: women work at home and men work in public spaces, such as the public oven.

Women prepared the dough on the kneading-trough, mixing with great attention yeast with sieved semolina flour, warm water and salt.

They worked the dough with both hands until they obtained a good dough consistency.

The home bread making was a typical women’s activity. From their childhood they learnt to prepare the yeast, to sieve the flour and to mould dough pieces.

Bread had also a simbolic value: vital element, symbol of sunlight and of fertility. This value was tight connected with the health, the security and the wellbeing of people.

After the preparation of the dough and leavining began the work of man, the baker, who gave the bread its definitive shape, marked it with a wooden or iron stamp, bearing the initials of the head of the family, and then baked it.

Today the Altamura bread is no more produced at home, but in artisan bakeries, that keep the use of excellent raw material (the fine hard wheat semolina) and traditional working process (natural yeast, hand-made shaping, baking in wood oven).

Thanks to these characteristics the Altamura bread will obtain the DOP-Denomination of Protected Origin, according to the CEE Rule 2081/92.

The white and black pictures refer to the whole production cycle of the Altamura bread.

Nicola Nuzzolese took them in 1978 on the occasion of a twinning, under banner of bread, between Altamura and Ferrara.