Our products

The products of the Forno di Gennaro Panificio Perrone are those of the Matera tradition: bread, focaccia, taralli, biscuits and friselle. Only selected raw materials from a short supply chain from fine Lucanian crops are used.

Through this site it is possible to order and buy online some of the most requested products of Forno di Gennaro.

The Bread

The bread in the Perrone il Forno di Gennaro bakery is baked twice, early in the morning and mid-morning, to give everyone the opportunity to have the bread still warm and fragrant. Matera bread is produced in its three typical forms: high bread, high bread with cuts and croissant bread, both by cooking in wood and in an electric oven.

Here Matera bread is produced exclusively with re-milled durum wheat semolina of superior quality, obtained by grinding in 5 steps in a small supply chain mill in Basilicata. This milling method leaves both the nutritional and organoleptic qualities of the wheat grain intact. In addition to traditional bread, other types and formats are produced, with cereals or with various condiments such as olives, extra virgin olive oil and milk.

Focaccia

The Perrone il Forno di Gennaro bakery produces and sells the traditional focaccia from Matera which in ancient times could be white, filled with onions or simply seasoned with cherry tomatoes or tomato puree, oil and salt. A particular variant of the focaccia was the rich in oil, a white focaccia whose surface was sprinkled with abundant EVO oil on which white sugar was adhered. This very particular focaccia is still produced but only on order.

The offer is completed by numerous other types of focaccia stuffed with typical products of the Lucanian territory. Over time, the Perrone il Forno di Gennaro bakery has followed and supported the evolution of taste and the availability of ever new products and thanks to the creative flair of its bakers, it has considerably enriched the variety of focaccias available daily. There are focaccias with fresh peppers or cruschi peppers, with onions and capers, with sausage and turnips, with tuna. There is also the Vesuvio focaccia which from the Neapolitan tradition has taken the habit of filling the ledge, the external part of the focaccia, with ricotta and spicy salami.

Friselle

Friselle or frize are a type of dry bread obtained through a double baking of a circular doughnut shape that, after the first baking, is divided in half and baked a second time in the oven. This is a very ancient type of bread, of which there are historical traces dating back to the Second Crusade, when a baker from Matera was commissioned to produce a large quantity of this particular type of bread, presumably to supply the troops. The frisella, in fact, was easily transported through the central hole and had a virtually unlimited shelf life.
To this day Forno di Gennaro still produces friselle, both with durum wheat semolina and whole wheat flour.

Taralli

Forno di Gennaro produces cancelle, the traditional taralli from Matera, simply with water, remilled semolina and oil. The traditional shapes of these savory cookies are the cancella, so called because of the swirls and crosses of the dough that resemble a wrought-iron gate,the tarallo lungo and the tarallino. A particular tarallo was made during the period of the feast of the dead, it was called "dead man’s bones" because being made without the oil the tarallo felt dry and very crumbly, thus recalling the reduction to dust of the bones after death. In addition to cancelle, other types of taralli are also produced; there are sweet ones made with white wine, egg. Naturally, these traditional products have also evolved and are now also made with wheat flour, cereals and whole grain flours.

Pastarelle

Pastarelle in Matera are sweet biscuits for breakfast or for guests and special occasions. They range from milk pastries made with egg, to those flavored with lemon peel, or mixed with cacao, then we have the Strazzate witch is a tipical dry biscuit full of toasted almonds.

Traditional festive products

In ancient times, other products besides bread were baked in the Matera ovens. Every day, together with the loaves of bread that the housewives entrusted to the bakers for baking, there were also focaccias and taralli and during the most important holidays the production was enriched with other specialties.

Just as then, the Forno di Gennaro is particularly attentive to anniversaries and products produced in Matera. Throughout the Christmas period, there is never a shortage of Pettole (small leavened dough pancakes) which were traditionally made on the day of the Immaculate Conception on December 8th to close the ritual fast; or u f’c’ latidd also called Tartanidd, a donut-shaped devotional bread enriched with fennel seeds.

The Pane di Sant’Antonio was a special bread that was made on the occasion of the anniversary of the patron saint of animals. It was a braided bread and its particularity was in the flour. To make it, flower flour was used, made from soft wheat at the time it was a rare type of flour and considered valuable.

For Easter, shortcrust pastry panaredde with hard-boiled egg is prepared. The typical shape is that of the woman with an egg on her lap which recalls the ancestral meaning of fertility, but there are also shapes linked more to the religious festivities of Easter such as the dove, the bell, the panarello (the wicker basket), all with boiled egg inside. Another Easter preserved product is Taralli with eggs, simple or covered with gileppo, a dry sugar glaze.

There are also the bread of the bride, a collectively kneaded bread, the friselle with almonds for the guests and the biscuits of San Biagio, protector of the throat, which have been given as gifts to children in the form of a bracelet.