BARI, Italy — The grandmothers set up shop early. Out of ground-floor kitchens that opened directly onto the street, they came out singing old songs, sweeping the stone floor and scattering their homemade orecchiette, the city’s renowned ear-shaped pasta, on the mesh screens of wooden trays.

As the pasta dried in the sun along with the sweatpants, T-shirts and bath towels draped from the balconies above, Nunzia Caputo, 61, sat making more with her mother. A local man popped by to buy a kilo, which Ms. Caputo weighed out on an old-fashioned scale.

“Here it’s always fresh,” she said, in a kitchen cluttered with simmering pots of sauce, sacks of semola flour and a muted television. “If nobody buys them, we eat all of them. And this happens,” she said, pointing at her belly.

The orecchiette makers of via dell’Arco Basso in the southern coastal town of Bari have drawn cruise ship tourists, and contributed to Lonely Planet naming Bari one of Europe’s top 10 destinations.

They also inspired Dolce & Gabbana to film a cosmetics ad (“Pasta, Amore e Emotioneyes”) in which Sylvester Stallone’s adult daughters strut down the street in black negligees, dance with the grandmas and sift orecchiette through their fingers.

SYLVESTER STALLONE & ORECCHIETTE

making it

Slice the pepper thinly and fry in a pan for 10 minutes with the olive oil.

Add the tomato, basil, salt, pepper and cook for 5 minutes.

Prepare the pasta until it is ‘al dente’.

Drain and thrown it into the pan with the other ingredients.

Mix with the pecorino cheese and serve immediately

RECIPES From MY SICILIAN NONNA

AMAZON.com

BARI VECCHIA

DOLCE & GABBANA

BARI VECCHIA

PUGLIA, ITALY