La cucina povera. Often translated as “the food of the poor,” the term seems unlikely to make mouths water or inspire serious foodies to blow their vacation budget on a cooking course.

But in and around the city of Lecce, deep in Italy’s heel, a crop of culinary schools and solo cooking teachers is encouraging travelers to embrace this traditionally marginalized food and to master the recipes of the extremely humble (and remarkably resourceful) local fare, which lies far at the other end of the culinary spectrum from haute cuisine.

Prepared with local produce, sundry leftovers and pastas, these unembellished peasant and working-class dishes are taking center stage.

“Over generations this human ingenuity began to take shape, so that really good things could be made from the humblest ingredients,” said Mr. Silvestori, an Italian-American from Michigan whose grandmother hailed from Lecce. “I’d liken ‘la cucina povera’ to ‘soul food,’ as the genesis for both was the profound necessity of the neglected and subjugated.”