Making Wilden / Lula, the laboratory where bread, pastries and meetings take place in Trani
Wilden.herbals meets producers, chefs, entrepreneurs and realities close to the healthy and wild philosophy. This time, we take you to Puglia, and precisely in Trani, where Luca Lacalamita has put down roots with his leavened products.
That Lula is an authentic emanation of Luca Lacalamita can be sensed even from the name, which is made up from the first syllables of his name and surname. Originally from Puglia, Luca is a pastry chef with international experience, nominated Gambero Rosso’s Best Pastry Chef in Italy 2018.
The Lula workshop opens its doors in 2019 in Trani as a project to experiment with stone-ground flours, mother yeast (which has also been given a name, it’s called Giotto!) as well as obviously wanting to integrate local products according to seasons. This is how breads, desserts, ice creams and chocolate come about in an environment where the rhythms slow down and everything is done in collaboration to welcome guests and every new gastronomic creation.
The same predisposition is the basis in the collaboration by Lula for Wilden.herbals, called Taralli with Remedium n ° 3 – Digestive. The healthiest and wildest tarallo that ever existed, at least according to us. We chatted with Luca about Lula’s concept and their bond with Wilden.
How did Lula come about in Trani?
Lula originates from the desire to go back to our homeland, from the desire to immerse ourselves in the biodiversity of our territory and use the extraordinary products that the earth grants us in our work.
What is the philosophy in the processing of leavened products?
We work our leavened products with fresh sourdough; we use stone-ground flours, we prefer ancient grains grown in a natural way by small Apulian producers who own their own mill and only grind their products.
What connects you to Wilden?
One of the main points of connection with Wilden is that we both take great care of a close and direct relationship with producers and exceptional raw materials.
Other than a thorough research for extraordinary ingredients, cultivated in a sustainable and organic way- to us this means to forge friendships and collaborations with curious and competent people who enrich the history of each of our products.
Shaping the dough: tell us an anecdote in your life / profession.
Before the opening of Lula we took countless walks through the narrow streets of the villages of our cities. We fell in love again with the Apulian Romanesque that characterizes our entire area and so, as a cultural tribute to our history, we had a wooden stencil made to represent the rose window of Trani’s cathedral on our Apulian whole wheat bread: leading us to the Rosone, a Lula best seller.
What does Healthy and Wild mean to you?
First of all, it means eating healthy.
It means choosing products that are not integral (a word too inflated), but whole in all their parts. We choose ancient organic wholemeal grains without decomposition and recomposition, which naturally contain starch, bran and wheat germ.
Choose vegetables and vegetables grown synergistically, untreated and choose not to cook them or cook them the right way not to lose their micronutrients; choose untreated fruit (or as our supplier says “ill treated” referring to the fact of forgetting the fruit trees until the moment of harvesting) to be able to eat it entirely with the peel. Choose fresh fruit juices thickened with agar agar to give freshness to our desserts. Choose to lower the amount of sugar in each recipe to appreciate the quality of the raw materials.
To keep, in every bite, the connection to the products of the earth, as mother nature delivers them to us.