Easter Sunday at Savelletri

Rather than having a traditional Easter lunch at home, we decided to drive down to Savelletri and dine at an open-air eatery on the sea. At Savelletri the coast is dotted with these places which serve a variety of seafood, but specialise in raw hedgehog sea urchins. These are served cut open and you can either scoop out the edible part with a piece of bread or just lick it with your tongue.


Personally, I don't care for raw seafood, but I did not go hungry. My lunch started with an octopus salad.


And continued with a grilled swordfish steak.


My husband and son had spaghetti with seafood after their sea urchins.


And a side order of steamed mussels.

Happy Easter!

Snorkeling

Yesterday we took a field trip with my 8 year old son's snorkeling class to Cala Incina, near the city of Polignano a Mare, about an hour's drive south of Molfetta. A "cala" is a cove and the coast around Polignano is full of beautiful ones. Raffaele, the instructor, guided the children (and interested parents) along the sheer face of the calcareous rock where they dived down to explore the underseas world! They found lots of interesting sea creatures and plants, including anemones, sponges, hedgehog sea urchins, alghe, etc.

More photos of Cala Incina tomorrow...

Hedgehog Sea Urchin

Hedgehog sea urchins live on the seabed of the Adriatic coastline in great abundance. Locally they are considered a great delicacy. They are easy to catch. All you need is a diving mask with a tube. Dive down to the sea floor and gather as many as you can into your net bag.
The one in the photo above is still alive (it didn't want to sit still for the picture!) and they are eaten while alive, with the top half containing the "eye" cut off (so it can't see what you are doing to it?).

This plateful is ready to be eaten. You either just lick the insides out or, if you're feeling slightly more refined, you scoop them out with a small piece of bread.