Is Pane di Altamura really the best bread in the world?

It is delicious, it has a powerful identity and an extraordinary history. But deciding which bread is “the best in the world” is far more complicated than it sounds.

Pane di Altamura is delicious.

I say that as someone from Altamura, but above all as someone who eats bread, cooks with it and has spent years trying to understand it a little better.

It has a substantial crust, a distinctive crumb, a recognizable aroma and a structure that lets it accompany many dishes from our cuisine beautifully. It belongs to my gastronomic memory, and I have no intention of diminishing its value.

The question I asked myself was another one.

Can we really say it is the best bread in the world?

And the more I looked for an answer, the more I realized that the question itself was probably wrong.

Because before deciding that something is “the best,” we should at least ask:

Best at what?

Best for doing what?

Best with what?

And above all:

best for whom?

Without those questions, “the best in the world” tells us very little about food.

It tells us much more about the way we now feel the need to communicate it.

Good and best do not mean the same thing

There is a distinction we tend to ignore.

“Good” and “best” are not the same claim.

I can comfortably say that Pane di Altamura is exceptionally good — and to me it is — because I am also expressing a preference shaped by my taste, my memory and my food culture.

“Good” inevitably contains a subjective component.

“Best,” however, is a much more demanding word.

It presupposes a comparison.

And every comparison requires a criterion.

Best for aroma?

For crust?

For softness?

For keeping quality?

For versatility?

For nutritional value?

For its ability to accompany a particular dish?

Without specifying the criterion, “best” sounds like an objective measurement when it is really just hiding the criteria chosen by the person judging.

So I can question the idea that Pane di Altamura is the best bread on the planet without having the slightest difficulty considering it a great bread and, quite simply, a delicious one.

Those two statements do not contradict each other.

It all started with Pane di Altamura

Growing up in Altamura, you hear certain phrases so often that eventually you stop even thinking of them as opinions.

Pane di Altamura stays soft for a week.

After seven days it is still good, while industrial bread has mold after two.

It is the best bread in the world.

At some point I tried to check.

Not because I wanted to tear down the product of my own city. Quite the opposite: I wanted to understand how much truth there was in those claims.

The first surprise was discovering that Pane di Altamura does, in fact, go stale.

A study specifically on Pane di Altamura DOP followed the product over six days of storage: as time passed, characteristics regarded as desirable — such as crumb elasticity and cohesiveness and overall aroma — decreased, while crumb firmness and stale-bread aroma increased.

Source: PubMed

Normal.

It is bread.

Another study made loaves separately with Appulo, Arcangelo, Duilio and Simeto wheat and found that even the cultivar used significantly changes staling. Bread made with Simeto lost less moisture and hardened more slowly than the others over eight days of storage.

But it still hardened.

Source: ResearchGate

Even more interesting is a study comparing two artisan Pane di Altamura DOP loaves with an industrial “Altamura-like” bread.

The artisan loaves had different structural and aromatic characteristics, but during storage their crumb hardened more than that of the industrial sample.

Source: ScienceDirect

And this is where another mistake has to be avoided immediately.

Industrial does not mean worse

We often use “industrial” as though it were a judgment of quality.

Industrial equals bad.

Artisan equals good.

It does not work like that.

“Industrial” first of all describes a production system and a scale.

Industrial bread can be mediocre.

It can also be technologically excellent.

And one of the goals of the food industry is precisely to control and extend shelf life.

Formulation, packaging, contamination control, moisture, acidification, protective atmosphere and, where used, preservatives also exist to slow deterioration and the loss of desirable characteristics.

So there is nothing scandalous about finding an industrial bread that, under one specific parameter, keeps better than an artisan one.

It does not mean it has a better aroma.

It does not mean it is more interesting gastronomically.

It does not mean I prefer it.

It simply means that it may have been designed better for that particular objective.

And that already brings us to the first important conclusion:

a product can be better under one parameter and worse under another.

Is Pane di Altamura really unique?

Yes.

But we need to agree on what “unique” means.

The DOP specification requires remilled durum wheat semolina obtained for at least 80% from the Appulo, Arcangelo, Duilio and Simeto varieties grown within the defined area.

The remaining 20% may come from other durum wheat varieties, but they must still be grown within the area defined by the specification.

To these are added sourdough starter, or pasta acida, sea salt and water.

The crust must be at least 3 millimeters thick and the crumb must have its characteristic straw-yellow color.

Source: Pane di Altamura DOP specification

I deliberately use sourdough starter or pasta acida.

“Natural yeast” is a term used technically as well, but I do not particularly like it because it seems to imply the existence of an “artificial” yeast. Compressed baker’s yeast is still a living organism; chemical leavening agents are another thing entirely.

But back to Altamura.

Many of the characteristics we use to describe its exceptional nature are not exclusive to Altamura at all.

A few kilometers away there is Pane di Matera IGP.

There too we find durum wheat semolina and sourdough starter. Its specification requires at least 20% of the semolina to come from local ecotypes and old varieties, including Cappelli, Duro Lucano, Capeiti and even Appulo.

Source: Pane di Matera IGP specification

Then there is Pagnotta del Dittaino DOP in Sicily.

Durum wheat again.

Sourdough again.

And among the permitted varieties we find Simeto, Duilio and Arcangelo and, within the remaining permitted share, Appulo.

Source: Pagnotta del Dittaino DOP specification

So saying:

“Pane di Altamura is unique because it is made with durum wheat semolina and sourdough starter”

is not enough.

Those characteristics belong to a durum-wheat bread culture much broader than Altamura.

Its identity comes instead from the specific combination of territory, cultivars, process, shape, history, specification and production culture.

It is different.

But different does not automatically mean superior.

The problem is that we often tell its story badly

There is something else that bothers me.

At least in what I tend to read and hear, Pane di Altamura is talked about a great deal but explained very little.

It is much easier to come across football-style rivalry.

Altamura against Matera.

Ours is better than yours.

As though recognizing the quality of another great bread could somehow take something away from our own.

Or else we retreat into the usual formulas:

durum wheat semolina,

sourdough starter,

tradition,

passion,

love.

Fine.

But which durum wheat?

Which varieties?

Why those varieties?

What characteristics do they give the bread?

How does the sourdough actually work?

Why that crust?

Why that loaf size?

Why did it historically need to last?

How does it change as it ages?

Why did local cooking develop different ways of using it?

Which characteristics does it share with Matera, Laterza or Dittaino, and which ones really distinguish it?

That is what it means to tell the story of a product.

“Made with passion and love” is not.

Anyone can add love.

I want to know what is in the dough, what lies behind it and why the result is what it is.

And that is exactly where Pane di Altamura becomes far more interesting than any slogan.

Even the specification tells the myth of “the best in the world”

There is another detail that is almost perfect for this discussion.

Horace appears in the historical document used to tell the story of the designation.

During the journey toward Brindisi described in the Satires, in 37 BC, the poet refers to “the best bread in the world.”

It sounds like definitive proof.

Except that the same specification immediately adds that this reference, if not properly attributable to Altamura itself, can in any case be attributed to the Murgia area.

So no: Horace was not certifying Pane di Altamura DOP two thousand years before the European Union.

He was expressing a judgment about a bread from the Murgia.

Beautiful.

Historically valuable.

But still a judgment.

Not a controlled comparison among every bread on the planet.

And that is interesting because it shows how easily a cultural testimony can be transformed into an absolute proclamation.

Source: historical Pane di Altamura DOP specification, Gazzetta Ufficiale, 27 August 2003.

It is delicious. And it is worth understanding why

All of this, however, is not merely a list of specifications.

In the finished product it means a substantial, deeply toasted crust, a straw-yellow crumb, aromas coming from durum wheat, fermentation and baking, and a structure capable of combining resistance with the ability to absorb liquid.

And when it is made well, quite simply, it is delicious.

I do not want to leave that point ambiguous.

I can question the idea that it is the best bread on the planet without having the slightest difficulty considering it a great bread.

In fact, precisely because I consider it great, I would rather tell its story for what it really is than defend it through slogans.

You only need to leave Italy to understand why: baguette, shokupan, pumpernickel, lavash

Let us actually hold a world championship of bread.

Altamura brings a large durum-wheat loaf with a thick crust and yellow crumb.

France brings a baguette built around a completely different crust-to-crumb ratio.

Japan brings shokupan: a soft, fine, elastic crumb designed to achieve almost the opposite result from what we seek in Pane di Altamura.

Germany brings Westfälischer Pumpernickel: at least 90% coarsely ground or whole rye, an extremely dense structure and a shelf life that its European specification measures in months when vacuum-packed and even up to two years in a can.

Source: Westfälischer Pumpernickel specification

Armenia brings lavash: extremely thin, baked quickly against the walls of a traditional oven and capable, according to UNESCO, of keeping for up to six months.

Source: UNESCO

Then there is injera, deliberately spongy and sour.

Naan.

Chinese mantou, steamed and therefore lacking the very crust that we consider one of bread’s fundamental pleasures.

The Mexican tortilla, which begins with an entirely different grain and an entirely different processing technology.

Who wins?

I do not know.

First we would need to understand what sport they are playing.

Best at what?

Crispness?

Softness?

Aroma?

Acidity?

Open crumb?

Keeping quality?

Ability to absorb a liquid?

Resistance when filled?

Nutritional value?

Technical difficulty?

Territorial identity?

The moment we assign a weight to each characteristic, we have already begun to determine the winner.

If softness is fundamental to me, I favor certain products.

If I reward crust, I favor others.

If I give enormous importance to keeping quality, everything changes again.

So the ranking does not simply discover who is better.

It first decides what “better” is supposed to mean.

I have no problem, then, with the idea that one product can be superior to another according to a defined parameter.

I have a much bigger problem when the parameter disappears and all that remains is:

“the best in the world.”

Best for doing what?

Then there is function.

Take Pane di Altamura.

Its structure can be magnificent with olive oil and tomato, with legumes, when it has to absorb liquid without falling apart immediately, or when it is toasted.

But am I making a katsu sando?

I would probably prefer shokupan.

Am I serving a particular cheese?

I might want more acidity.

Am I toasting?

Soaking?

Filling?

Storing?

Eating it straight from the oven?

Every time, the desirable characteristics change.

A product cannot be “best” independently of what we are asking it to do.

Pane di Altamura has a quality we explain badly: it changes, and the cuisine changes with it

The fact that Pane di Altamura goes stale does not diminish its value in the slightest.

Quite the opposite.

One of the interesting parts of its gastronomic culture lies precisely in the way we people of Altamura learned to use it through the different stages of its life.

The historical specification recalls that its durability was essential for farmers and shepherds who could remain on farms for one or two weeks.

And immediately afterward it adds a detail far more interesting than the legend of eternally soft bread: it was also eaten seasoned with salt and oil and immersed in boiling water.

So the point was not that the bread stayed identical to day one.

The point was that it remained usable.

We in Altamura have always learned to use it differently according to its condition.

Freshly baked, you eat it one way.

As it loses moisture, it can become bruschetta.

Crostini.

Cialledda.

Soaked bread.

Breadcrumbs.

These last examples are uses from local domestic and gastronomic culture, not the list given in the official specification.

The specification specifically documents the product’s durability and the consumption of rehydrated bread seasoned with salt and oil.

Everyday tradition then developed many other ways of continuing to use it.

And I think that distinction matters.

Because the value is not in pretending the bread does not age.

It is in the fact that the cuisine learned to change with it.

That is gastronomic culture.

And it is also an old form of sustainability: using a raw material completely, giving it different functions as it evolves.

Best with what?

Then there is pairing.

The best olive oil.

The best cheese.

The best wine.

But an ingredient is almost never eaten in a vacuum.

Cooking is relationship.

Fat and acidity.

Sweet and salty.

Crisp and soft.

Intensity and delicacy.

A Coratina olive oil that is intensely bitter and peppery can be extraordinary on one preparation and completely overwhelming on another.

A delicate oil may seem insignificant in the first case and perfect in the second.

The quality of the product has not suddenly changed.

What has changed is what it has to enter into dialogue with.

So the interesting question becomes:

Which product works best here?

And above all: best for whom?

This is probably the most important question.

Because on the other side of the plate there is a person.

And that person brings culture, experience, memory, habits, expectations and sensory sensitivities.

A study on Waterford Blaa, an Irish IGP bread, compared Irish consumers who knew the product well with British consumers who were less familiar with it.

Same bread.

Different appreciation.

Even the generous dusting of flour, a characteristic feature of Blaa, was perceived as excessive by the British consumers.

Source: PubMed

The bread had not changed.

The people had.

Taste, then, is not simply a property of food.

It is a relationship between what we eat and the person eating it.

So what about food competitions and rankings?

This is why I struggle with phrases such as:

“the best assassina in the world.”

“the best pizza in the world.”

“the best pizzaiolo.”

A competition can be extremely serious.

It can establish criteria, select competent judges, standardize conditions and assign scores.

At the end it can perfectly legitimately say:

Among these participants, evaluated according to these criteria, this product received the highest score.

That is information.

The problem begins when we lose the rest of the sentence.

And what remains is:

“It is the best in the world.”

Best among which products?

Who took part?

Who was left out?

Which parameters?

How were they weighted?

Who was judging?

And above all:

best for whom?

Guides can be extremely useful.

Competitions can reward real skill.

Awards can help me discover products and professionals.

What they cannot become is a universal law of taste.

So what is gastronomic culture?

This brings us to the question I actually care about.

For me, it does not mean knowing the name of the number-one restaurant.

It does not mean memorizing every DOP.

And it certainly does not mean becoming the unbearable person at the table who has to explain to everyone else what they are eating.

It means, first of all, having enough tools to understand differences and make choices.

Why is this different from that?

Why does this ingredient work here?

Is this characteristic a defect, or is it part of the style?

What do I like?

And above all:

how often does it make sense for me to eat this?

Because gastronomic culture and food culture cannot ignore health.

No food needs to be demonized. But frequency matters

I do not believe in the childish division between good foods and bad foods.

A hamburger is not evil.

A dessert is not evil.

Fried food is not evil.

And one dinner does not destroy a balanced diet.

But it does not follow that every food can occupy the same amount of space in our diet.

WHO now identifies four principles at the foundation of a healthy diet: adequacy, balance, moderation and diversity. The actual composition then varies according to the individual, physical activity, cultural context and the foods available.

Source: WHO — Healthy diet

For me, this is fundamental.

No food to demonize.

But also no:

“Everything is fine in moderation”

used as a magic phrase to stop thinking.

Quantity matters.

Frequency matters.

Above all, what we do habitually matters.

That is also why I continue to find the Mediterranean Diet interesting not as a folkloric list of Italian products, but as an eating pattern.

And today we have to add another variable to health.

The impact of our choices.

FAO and WHO talk about sustainable healthy diets by considering health, environmental impact, affordability and sociocultural context together.

Source: WHO — Sustainable healthy diets

That does not mean putting every plate on moral trial.

It means being aware of how frequently we consume certain resources as well.

This does not mean writing a dissertation about every egg we buy

Gastronomic culture can become ridiculous in the opposite direction too.

If I am shopping for the week and buying pasta, eggs, salad, legumes, yogurt or vegetables at the supermarket, I have no intention of reconstructing the genealogy of every ingredient.

I do not need to track down the farmer.

I do not need to interview the miller.

I do not need to turn Tuesday lunch into a university research project.

Fortunately, part of that complexity is delegated to the system.

In the European Union, only food considered safe may be placed on the market, and the General Food Law establishes traceability obligations along the supply chain.

Source: European Commission — General Food Law

Prepacked foods are also subject to mandatory information requirements including the name of the food, ingredients, allergens, quantity, dates, storage conditions and nutrition declaration.

Source: European Commission — Mandatory food information

If I have some basic knowledge and know how to read a label, that can be enough for a great many everyday choices.

In fact:

being competent also means knowing when you do not need to investigate further.

Other times, I do want to ask one more question

The situation changes when I am deliberately looking for something special.

I visit an olive mill.

I walk into a dairy.

I choose a butcher because of the quality of the meat.

I go to a restaurant that constantly talks about territory.

I enter a historic bakery.

At that point I am not simply buying something safe to eat.

I am also buying a promise of competence.

And here I always return to something that really happened.

A few years ago I accompanied two older Sicilian tourists around Altamura.

They were deeply passionate about breadmaking, flours and wheat.

I took them to two or three bakeries.

They were not asking:

“Is it good?”

They asked questions.

Which varieties do you use?

Which flour?

Why this one?

Where does it come from?

And I noticed something I have never forgotten.

None of the owners we spoke with could tell us the names of the wheat varieties they were using.

They knew the supplier.

Not the wheat.

Of course, I cannot know whether those bakeries were actually producing certified Pane di Altamura DOP or simply bread made in Altamura.

But the contrast remains interesting.

Because the Pane di Altamura DOP specification names those wheats explicitly.

Appulo.

Arcangelo.

Duilio.

Simeto.

That experience taught me something I consider important:

you can repeat a tradition without fully understanding it.

And perhaps that also explains why we so often end up describing a complex product with very simple words such as “passion,” “love” and “tradition.”

They are reassuring words.

But they are not a substitute for knowledge.

An artisan is not automatically competent

A baker can repeat a process learned from his father perfectly for thirty years and know very little about the raw material he buys.

A very young cook can use Instagram every day and know farms, cultivars, fermentation, seasonality and suppliers obsessively well.

Who has more gastronomic culture?

It does not depend on age.

It does not depend on a wood-fired oven.

It does not depend on follower count.

It depends on knowledge.

That is why I do not think we need to ask in front of every plate:

“Who produced this?”

That would be exhausting.

The question becomes important when the person selling to me is also promising territory, craftsmanship, history, supply chain and expertise.

If you are selling me a commodity, I want a good commodity.

If you are selling me culture, I want to find culture on the other side of the counter.

And where do I fit into this?

There is no single “food consumer.”

There are different clusters of demand.

I know fairly well which one I belong to.

I do not choose a restaurant because I have watched twenty reels of cheese stretching and dripping.

If anything, that kind of content tends to push me away.

I am far more interested in walking into a butcher shop and talking to the person behind the counter.

Seeing what they sell.

Understanding how they talk about it.

Asking where that meat comes from.

Finding out why they recommend that cut.

I can absolutely discover a producer through Instagram.

But I am much more likely to stop on an apparently “boring” reel in which someone talks about a wheat variety, a farm, a territory, a technique or a family story.

I am not against social media.

I am against emptiness dressed up as gastronomic content.

Social media has introduced a new selection criterion

Today, food does not compete only to be eaten.

It also competes to be looked at.

And those two things do not necessarily coincide.

One study analyzed 53,894 images posted by 90 food influencers on Instagram.

Both visual aesthetics and the caloric density of the depicted food predicted image popularity; caloric density was positively associated with likes and comments.

Source: PubMed

This does not prove that highly caloric food is bad.

And it does not prove that someone necessarily cooks “for the algorithm.”

But it does tell us something about the competitive environment.

The algorithm cannot taste.

It cannot sense the quality of a flour.

It cannot perceive the persistence of an olive oil.

It does not understand fermentation.

It does not know where the meat comes from.

But it can see very well:

cheese dripping,

sauces being poured,

meat sizzling,

crusts breaking,

products sliced open,

oversized portions.

This is where what I call food for the algorithm begins.

And yes: some trends are stupid

I use the word stupid deliberately.

Not as a synonym for:

“I do not like it.”

I am interested in the concept behind the word.

Carlo M. Cipolla, in The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity, defined a stupid person as someone who causes a loss to others while gaining nothing and potentially harming themselves as well.

I do not want to mechanically apply his matrix to restaurants.

That would be wrong: a business that produces an absurd piece of content and sells a thousand sandwiches can obviously gain an economic advantage.

But I take one principle from Cipolla that I find useful:

to assess how intelligent a behavior is, it is not enough to observe the immediate benefit obtained by the person carrying it out. We also have to look at the costs it creates around them.

And that is where, for me, certain food trends become stupid.

Not because they are modern.

Not because they are caloric.

Not because they become popular.

A celebratory meal can be excessive and wonderful.

A dessert can be a calorie bomb and worth every single bite.

The problem begins when excess no longer has a gastronomic function.

When a focaccia is covered with disproportionate amounts of meat and cheese not because that quantity creates a more balanced or more interesting result, but because it needs to look more absurd on video.

When a sandwich becomes physically unmanageable.

When the ingredients stop being distinguishable.

When oil, sauces and cheese cover every other raw material.

When the only parameter becomes:

more.

More meat.

More cheese.

More sauce.

Bigger.

More dripping.

More absurd.

At that point I no longer see gastronomic research.

I see a race for attention.

Why I consider it stupid

Because that race can create costs on several levels.

It can damage gastronomic culture when it teaches us to confuse quantity with value, intensity with quality, and visual surprise with competence.

It can help normalize an eating model in which exaggerated portions and extremely energy-, salt- and fat-dense combinations are represented not as exceptions, but as a desirable standard.

A healthy diet, by contrast, also rests on moderation and balance.

It can even harm the producer, because it forces them into a permanent race.

If yesterday you covered a focaccia with ten bombette, what do you do tomorrow?

Twelve?

Pour a kilo of cheese over it?

Put it inside another focaccia?

Once excess becomes the format, excess has to keep outdoing itself.

And then there is the environment.

Every food has required land, water, energy, raw materials, processing and transport.

That does not mean one enormous focaccia causes a climate emergency.

That would be ridiculous.

But I find it difficult to call a model intelligent when it uses more resources than necessary without producing a genuine gastronomic improvement in return, especially when the only additional result is a few seconds of online attention.

For me, then, the question is very simple:

Does what you added actually make the product taste better, or is it there only to make the video look more impressive?

If the answer is the second one, I am not particularly curious.

Quite the opposite.

I will not set foot in those places.

Not because I think eating fatty food is immoral.

I happily eat fatty food.

Not because I am afraid of calories.

If I am going to indulge in something, I simply want it to be worth it.

That is exactly the point.

Food was not born to become content

Of course food has always been spectacle too.

A sizzling grill is spectacular.

A pizza coming out of the oven is spectacular.

A pastry chef glazing a cake is spectacular.

A great fish counter is spectacular.

TikTok did not invent the aesthetics of food.

The problem is something else.

It is the reversal of the hierarchy.

Before:

I make something I think is good, then I look for the best way to tell its story.

In some cases today:

I need to post another video, so I invent something that will make a scene.

Content no longer tells the story of the product.

The product is built to feed the content.

For me, that is a degeneration.

Take the smash burger: a technique, not a medal

The smash burger is interesting precisely because it forces us to avoid another simplification.

The first intuitive objection is:

if I press the meat onto the griddle, I lose juices.

Correct.

So why should it be better than a thick, well-cooked, juicy burger?

It does not have to be.

It is pursuing a different result.

The initial smash dramatically increases the contact surface between meat and the very hot griddle.

That means more browned surface and more development of aromas associated with intense cooking.

The smash sacrifices some of the potential juiciness of a thick patty in exchange for crust, browning and contrast.

It is a technique.

It has a logic.

It can be executed extremely well.

The problem is not the smash burger.

The problem is when suddenly everyone has to make a smash burger.

I prefer another direction: interpreting technique through the territory

If I am choosing a burger, I personally find it much more interesting when a place takes that technique and tries to interpret it through its own territory.

A considered blend of fatty and lean cuts from local farms.

A local cheese that genuinely has the right characteristics.

A bun designed for that filling.

A sauce that completes the rest.

Not because:

local = better.

I do not believe that.

Local meat can be mediocre.

A typical local cheese can be completely wrong for that burger.

And a good cheddar can work perfectly when that is precisely the result we want.

The point is the thinking.

Taking a technique born somewhere else and interpreting it through the ingredients available around us seems far more interesting to me than endlessly reproducing the same bun, the same cheddar, the same sauce and the same photograph.

That, to me, is gastronomic culture.

Not locking tradition inside a display case.

Knowing it well enough to be able to do something with it.

The problem, then, is not novelty. It is homogenization

Poke.

Pulled pork.

Pistachio everywhere.

Gourmet burgers.

All-you-can-eat sushi.

Smash burgers.

Croissants filled to order.

Dubai chocolate.

None of these things is necessarily bad.

But when a hundred independent businesses suddenly begin offering versions of the same format, something is happening.

Supply looks at what sells.

Demand looks at what it sees.

And the two feed each other.

We also know that restaurant choice does not depend exclusively on gastronomic quality.

A 2024 review analyzed 111 studies and identified 117 factors associated with restaurant choice and experience, including food, atmosphere, service, price, beliefs and previous experiences.

Food was central, but it was by no means the only variable.

Source: ScienceDirect

That is how markets work.

The problem is that the faster the cycle becomes, the more perfectly we know the format and the less we know the product.

Perhaps this is what I really mean by gastronomic culture

Not knowing where people eat “best.”

Not knowing a hundred Michelin-starred restaurants.

Not considering yourself superior because you buy from a small producer.

For me, it means having judgment.

Understanding that two breads can both be excellent and serve different purposes.

That a food can be gastronomically magnificent and still make sense at a very low frequency of consumption.

That a local product does not automatically become good because it is local.

That industrial does not automatically mean bad.

That artisan does not automatically mean competent.

That innovation does not mean adding ingredients.

That tradition is not the repetition of gestures whose reasons we have forgotten.

That sustainability, health and pleasure are not three separate conversations.

And above all, that I do not have to analyze everything I eat obsessively.

I simply need enough tools to know when it is worth asking one more question.

So what really makes Pane di Altamura great?

Not the fact that it has to beat everyone else.

It is already delicious without needing a ranking.

It has a recognizable sensory identity, codified raw materials, a close relationship with its territory, a documented history and a gastronomic culture that even learned to use it differently as it ages.

It does not need industrial bread to grow mold first.

Recognizing the greatness of Pane di Matera, Dittaino or other bread traditions takes nothing away from Pane di Altamura.

It does not have to beat the baguette.

Pumpernickel.

Lavash.

Shokupan.

The point is not to determine whether it defeats them all.

The point is to understand why it is so good, what makes it different and why it continues to hold such an important place in our gastronomic culture.

I find that far more interesting than an imaginary medal.

Perhaps we do not need the best in the world

Perhaps we need fewer rankings and more differences.

Less:

number one.

More:

why?

Why this raw material?

Why this technique?

Why this texture?

Why this pairing?

Why this frequency?

Why here?

And, when it is worth asking:

who made it, with what, and why in exactly this way?

Because in the end I arrived at a definition that convinces me far more than any ranking:

Having gastronomic culture does not mean knowing which food is best. It means having enough tools to understand differences and consciously choose what is best suited to you, to what you want to eat, to your health, to how often you consume it, to the context and, when possible, to the planet.

No food to demonize.

No product to sanctify.

No artisan automatically good because they are an artisan.

No industry automatically bad because it is industry.

And no obligation to respect a trend simply because millions of people like it.

You can look at a preparation and say:

this is stupid.

As long as you can then answer the more important question:

why?

I started from Pane di Altamura thinking I needed to understand whether it really was the best bread in the world.

In the end I understood that the question itself was wrong.

The point is not to establish whether Pane di Altamura is the best bread in the world. The point is to understand why it is so good, what makes it different, and to learn to appreciate it for what it really is.

Because recognizing differences requires more culture than making a ranking.

And it lets us enjoy what is on our plate much more.