These sun-scorched plains were for centuries one of Italy’s poorest regions, with a cuisine heavily dependent on vegetables and other simple ingredients. This being Italy, however, simple dishes were often made extraordinary by the ingenuity of the cooks and the sheer quality of the produce.

Maccheroni con pesce fsciuto means “macaroni with fish that escaped” — pasta with a sauce of onions, tomatoes and barnacle-covered stones from the sea, which impart a faintly fishy aroma.

Orecchiette (“little ears”) are discs of pasta typically served with nothing more than some olive oil, a couple of anchovies and a generous handful of cime di rapa, turnip tops.

Wild leaves ­— acetosa, erimosa, borraggine, crispigni and a dozen others — are used in place of cultivated herbs, while lampascioni are bitter wild tubers related to hyacinths.

Puglia on a plate

Michelin stars count for little here, writes Fiona Sims. Instead fresh flavours and rustic cooking offer a genuine feast

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Peasants still make a cold soup, cialledda, in the fields by simply chopping a tomato, an onion and a cucumber-like vegetable called barattiere into water thickened with chunks of dense Puglian bread. Bread and pasta are sometimes made with farina arsa, flour made with burnt wheat kernels, which impart a delicate smoky flavour.

Mozzarella is another speciality — found here not just as the cricket-ball cheeses we know in the UK, but as trecce, plaited braids; bocconcini, “little mouthfuls”; and the wonderful burrata, a quail’s-egg-sized mozzarella that contains in its core a spurting yolk of creamy buffalo butter. These are sometimes wrapped in asphodel leaves to preserve them, but even so won’t last longer than a day or two.

Eating meat and even fish is, relatively speaking, a recent luxury. In Taranto, they make sausages with offal and brains, or even with tuna — the eponymous tarantella. But meat-lovers needn’t despair.

With typical Puglian directness, many butchers set up grills on the pavements: you choose your meat, then watch it cook over wood embers before eating it in a bun, with spicy green olive oil for sauce.

These days, upmarket restaurants are also plentiful, and not just for tourists — Puglia has long since shaken off its poverty-stricken past, and is now one of the most prosperous parts of southern Italy.

Taranto is something of a gastronomic centre, boasting restaurants such as Le Vecchie Cantine, where you can eat local ingredients such as cuttlefish, gilthead bream, yellow carrots, prickly pears and scattiata (sweet peppers).

To the northeast, in Ceglie Messapica, is Al Fornello da Ricci, where husband-and-wife chefs Antonella Ricci and Vinod Sookar have earned a Michelin star; while L’Osteria del Tempo Perso in Ostuni is famous for its antipasto — always a highlight in Puglia.

Here, you can feast on up to 15 different starters before you so much as order your main course. The classic is the ’ncapriata — chickpea purée with chicory — a typical example of excellent ingredients cunningly combined, which is Puglia’s stock-in-trade.

Puglia produces vast amounts of wine, including some of Italy’s few rosés.

Wine-makers speak highly of the potential for the primitivo grape, a close cousin of zinfandel — in a brazen attempt to lure American money, some are now even putting “zinfandel” on the label. Mille Una, Castello Monaci and Feudi di San Gregorio are all reliable producers, but this is a heavy, jammy, alcoholic wine, and you may well find that the light whites of Martina Franca go better with your vegetable antipasto.

Restaurants: Le Vecchie Cantine, 23 Via Girasoli, Lama, Taranto; 00 39-099 777 2589; evenings and Sunday lunch only; closed Wednesdays in winter; about £35pp, plus wine.

Al Fornello da Ricci, Calle Da Montevicoli, Ceglie Messapica; 083 137 7104; closed Monday evenings and Tuesdays; about £40pp, plus wine. Osteria del Tempo Perso, 47 Via G Tanzarella Vitale, Ostuni; 083 130 4819, osteriadeltempoperso.com; closed Mondays; about £35pp, plus wine.

Getting there and around: fly to Bari from Gatwick with British Airways (0844 493 0787, ba.com), or to Brindisi or Bari from Stansted with Ryanair (0871 246 0000, ryanair.com).

The nearest large airport is Naples, 190 miles east of Taranto. Fly there with EasyJet (easyjet.com) from Gatwick, Stansted or Liverpool, BA from Gatwick, or with Aer Lingus (0818 365000, aerlingus.com) from Dublin. A week’s inclusive car hire starts at about £134 through Auto Europe (0800 358 1229, auto-europe.co.uk), Travelsupermarket (travelsupermarket.com) or Holiday Autos (0871 472 5229, holidayautos.co.uk).

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