Highway Of The Sea

Paola Bacchia’s new cookbook, Adriatico, takes inspiration from the cuisine of Italy’s Adriatic coast.

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For Paola Bacchia, the Adriatic Coast is more than a simple entry in an atlas. It’s the groves of ancient olive trees on the Salento peninsula, the spindly wooden fishing machines along the shoreline between Ortona and Vasto, and the horses on the coast of the Gargano taught to trample on sun-hardened broad beans to release their edible seeds. The author’s love of the region was inspired by her father, Nello. “He grew up on the shores of the Adriatic Sea, on the Istrian peninsula, which was part of Italy at the time,” says Bacchia. “It is the sound of my father’s words and the taste of my mother’s cooking that drove me to write Adriatico.”