Shape: Cicatelli — The Hand-Touched Soul of Northern Puglia

In a land shaped by wheat, wind, and patience, every pasta tells a story.
Cicatelli whisper theirs softly — through fingertips, flour, and the rhythm of kitchens that never stopped listening.

Where the Plains Meet the Hand

Between the Adriatic and the Apennines stretches the Tavoliere delle Puglie, a plain so vast that locals call it Italy’s granary.
Here the air is dry, the light relentless, the soil pale with limestone and rich with the grain that has fed southern Italy for centuries.
It is from this wheat — golden, hard, and high in protein — that the pasta known as cicatelli was born.

Cicatelli belong to the north of Puglia, especially around Foggia, Lucera and the Gargano peninsula — places that live between field and sea.
If orecchiette is Bari’s heartbeat and sagne the pride of Salento, then cicatelli are the voice of the plains: calm, steady, quietly confident.
They are a pasta you make when there is no need to show off, when the quality of the wheat, the texture of your fingers, and the sauce from your own tomatoes are enough.

From Wheat and Water — and Nothing Else

The dough for cicatelli could not be simpler: durum-wheat semolina and water.
No eggs, no embellishment, just the grain and the hand that knows what to do with it.
The semolina comes from the wheat of the Tavoliere — the same grain that gives life to pane di Altamura. It is high in gluten, naturally amber, and when mixed with water it forms a dough with quiet resistance, perfect for shaping by hand.

In some areas, particularly near Foggia, people still use grano arso — burnt wheat flour — a legacy of times when peasants collected grains singed by the field fires that followed harvest. It lends a smoky aroma and darker hue to the pasta, a flavour of survival turned to beauty.

Cicatelli are shaped on wooden boards, never metal. Each small piece of dough is pressed and dragged with two or three fingers, creating a short, curved form with a hollow centre. The surface comes out rough, irregular, alive.
The making is rhythmic, meditative — roll, cut, press, drag — the kind of motion that slows time and anchors memory.

A Shape with Character

At first glance, cicatelli resemble cavatelli, their more famous cousins, but a closer look reveals their own personality.

They are longer and smoother than cavatelli, without the central slit.
They are more elongated than orecchiette, yet still meant to cradle sauce rather than just hold it.
They are more rustic than trofie, with a rougher exterior and a slightly thicker wall.

Each motion leaves a fingerprint — a gentle indentation from the maker’s fingertips. That is why every handful of cicatelli looks slightly different. In a factory, that would be a flaw; in a Pugliese kitchen, it is authenticity itself.

A Geography of Flavour

To understand cicatelli is to understand the geography that shaped them.

The northern Pugliese landscape is unlike the postcard south of olive groves and white towns.
It is wheat fields and wild herbs, stone farmhouses and wind from the Adriatic. It is less theatrical, more stoic, but that restraint breeds flavour.

Historically, this was land of farmers and shepherds who lived off grain and vegetables more than meat or cheese. Cicatelli fit that rhythm perfectly: a shape that could be made quickly, dried on linen, cooked in minutes, and paired with whatever the season allowed.

Today, the pasta remains a regional emblem of Foggia and the Gargano. The town of San Nicandro Garganico even calls itself the City of Flowers and of the Cicatelli.
They celebrate it each summer, serving it with tomato, seafood or wild greens — a living reminder that in Puglia, pasta is never only food but also identity.

The Companions on the Plate

Cicatelli’s charm lies in its ability to adapt — to hold thick sauces, absorb oils, and trap small pieces of vegetables or seafood in its hollow. A few classic pairings define its place at the table.

1. Cicatelli con Rucola e Pomodori
   A summer dish of cherry tomatoes sautéed with garlic, olive oil and a pinch of chilli, tossed with wild rocket and finished with grated ricotta dura. The bitterness of the greens meets the sweetness of the tomatoes — a dialogue of opposites that defines Puglia.
2. Cicatelli ai Frutti di Mare
   A reflection of the coastal kitchens of Manfredonia and Vieste. The pasta catches mussel liquor, tomato pulp and olive oil in its curve — the sea folded into the grain.
3. Cicatelli alle Cime di Rapa
   In Bari they use orecchiette; in the north they use cicatelli. The thicker pasta balances the bitterness of the greens and the saltiness of anchovies.
4. Cicatelli al Sugo di Carne
   The Sunday dish of the Tavoliere: slow-cooked tomato sauce with rolled beef, parsley and pecorino. The pasta’s rough surface holds the ragù like a sponge of wheat and patience.
5. Modern variations
   Some chefs now use grano arso cicatelli with smoked aubergine purée, lemon zest and almonds — a reinterpretation of peasant invention as modern elegance.

Whatever the sauce, the rule is the same: it must cling, not drown. Cicatelli are made for embrace, not immersion.

A Craft Surviving Modernity

For a time, cicatelli seemed destined to vanish.
Industrial pasta makers preferred shapes that could be extruded and standardised. The humble hand-rolled forms — capunti, strascinati, cicatelli — risked fading into memory.

But the tide is turning. Small producers across Puglia are reviving the shape, using local wheat, low-temperature drying and bronze dies that mimic the roughness of a hand-dragged surface.

Chefs, too, are rediscovering its virtues. Its square-rounded profile plates beautifully; its texture provides depth; its backstory — handmade, forgotten, revived — appeals to diners who hunger for meaning.

The slow-food movement has played its part, encouraging local grain cultivation and the protection of traditional shapes. As the market shifts toward authenticity, cicatelli’s irregular beauty has become its greatest strength.

From Home Table to Artisan Brand

For those who see pasta as both nourishment and narrative, cicatelli offer a story already written.

For producers, it is a shape still tied to geography — the wheat plains of Foggia and the Gargano’s limestone hills. It provides an opportunity to highlight single-origin semolina, grano arso heritage, or a family’s own milling tradition. It lends itself to small-batch production, short supply chains and authentic branding.

For chefs, it introduces a new voice to menus long dominated by orecchiette. Its texture and hollowness invite creativity, from seafood sauces to vegetable ragùs, while keeping a foot planted firmly in tradition.

For Pasta Love readers, it is a reminder that not all Pugliese pasta looks the same.
Cicatelli belong to a quieter north — less olive grove, more grain and wind — a place where flavour comes not from luxury but from endurance.

In the trilogy of Pugliese shapes — the ear, the ribbon, the hollow — cicatelli play the part of quiet strength.

Fun Facts

• The word cicatelli likely derives from the local dialect for “small hollows,” connected to the term cavatelli, meaning carved or scooped.
• Some versions incorporate burnt wheat flour, grano arso, once collected by peasants after field fires, turning necessity into distinct flavour.
• Each piece bears the maker’s fingerprint, a literal signature of craft.
• The town of San Nicandro Garganico holds an annual Sagra dei Cicatelli celebrating the dish with music, wheat garlands and communal tables.
• Traditional cooks claim you can identify who made the pasta by the pattern of their fingertip marks.

The Philosophy of the Hollow

If orecchiette are the ear that listens and troccoli the line that binds, then cicatelli are the hollow that holds — a space created by touch, designed to receive flavour.
That small indentation, formed by the drag of a finger, is more than geometry. It is a human gesture preserved in food — a connection between maker and eater, between land and table.

Each cicatello carries a trace of care, a fragment of rhythm. It reminds us that texture is not decoration but memory made tangible.
In an age of mechanical precision, this imperfection feels radical.

Cicatelli embody the philosophy of Puglia itself: simple ingredients, humble origins, infinite generosity.

The Taste of Continuity

To eat cicatelli is to taste time.
You taste the grain that ripened in the Tavoliere sun; the hand that pressed it; the sauce simmered in oil from a nearby grove; the quiet pride of a land that still feeds itself on its own harvest.

They are not famous, not glamorous, not grand — but they endure.
Endurance is what Puglia does best: turning simplicity into memory and memory into flavour.

When you roll a piece of dough, press, drag, and feel that small hollow take shape beneath your fingers, you are not just making pasta.
You are tracing a line through centuries of work, weather and will.
You are, in a small and beautiful way, letting Puglia remember itself.