Fresh orecchiette drying on the wooden frame in via dell'Arco Basso, the orecchiette street of Bari old town
Via dell'Arco Basso, in the heart of Bari's old town, is known as "the street of orecchiette": a fifty-metre alley where the pasta makers of Bari, the so-called "orecchiette ladies", shape fresh pasta on their own doorsteps. The tool that defines this everyday landscape is the frame photographed here: a folding wooden table with a mesh top that lets the air through and allows the pasta to dry evenly without sticking. The dough is made of durum wheat semolina and water only: it is rolled into a rope under the palm of the hand, cut into small pieces with a smooth-bladed knife, dragged across the work surface and turned inside out over the thumb to obtain the characteristic concave shape. The different shades of yellow visible on the trays reveal different drying stages, from freshly shaped pasta to pasta ready to be sold. Following the 2024 agreement between the Arco Basso pasta makers, the Municipality of Bari, the local health authority and the trade associations, home production and sale are now governed by precise hygiene and tax requirements, protecting a craft that remains one of the strongest identity marks of Bari's historic centre.
