WHAT IS A PUCCIA? POO–CHA
The puccia comes from Salento, the olive-growing country at the southern tip of Puglia — the heel of Italy's boot. Bakers there pulled a handful of dough from the weekly bread and fired it into a small round loaf. Harvesters carried them into the groves and filled them at midday with whatever was on hand. It's been peasant food, and perfect food, for centuries.
Nothing about it has changed. The dough is stretched by hand and slid onto the floor of a 600-degree wood-fired oven, where it goes in pale and comes out charred, blistered, and hollow — baptized by fire. Then it's split open and filled.