Italian food history IS the history of Italy.
It is oven baked , then cut in half horizontally and it Is then baked again in the oven. The looks of the frisella is with one smooth and one rough surface.
That is, I, being Italian, can tell that it is not just food that we are talking about here: it is rather about a food culture that goes proudly along with an intimate connection italians have with the territory, the peoples and their roots.
If you think about it, after all, it was a natural consequence.Cities were, in fact, the only places where everything that was needed to develop a great gastronomy concentrated: ingredients and culinary skills, naturally, but also power, richness, markets and social competition. Italian gastronomy gives its best in the urban markets, less so in the countryside farms.
My recommendation to you, if you're willing to discover the traditional, genuine history of italian food, is not just to walk through the woods and the hills in Tuscany, but to walk through the many cities of the italian peninsula, smelling and tasting their specialties and listening to the stories about them and the people who created and still maintain them alive.
A Civilisation Of The Table
But, why do Italians eat so well?
As it might have become a familiar image to you, also in the Salento tradition, bread baking was done according to a common schedule at shared ovens. Bread could be baked bi-weekly or with an up to more than quarterly frequency, so that the quantity of the dough that a single family (or more families together, even) could amount to up to 200 Kilograms.
There are even studies that want to prove that the italian way of cooking and eating brings benefits to people's health and that it is, therefore, to learn and adopt in some of its gastronomic lessons.
Malnourishment and hunger are fundamental elements of the italian food history and all our accounts proceed through the food habits of the dominators and of the dominated, through the daily alimentation and the meals of the higher classes.
I woud say that italian food history combines elements of the italian alimentation history and of the italian gastronomy. But do not let my word fool you: this journey is going to be certainly a pleasure. Discovering means also uncover savors and tastes not known before.The deeper we will go together into the italian gastronomy, the more variety an richness comes to the surface.
It is like every single recipe or food has a history worth discovering and telling. Being exhaustive is going to be challenging, as this variety is sometimes disconcerting, the more if we start considering italian gastronomy outside Italy.
But, is this the reality?
Friselle have a characteristic shape, derived from their production process: they are typically circular and with a hole at their center.
Indeed these products are traditional and follow long prescribed preparation methods and processes, but observing more closely we will together discover that italian food history and, for that matter, of Italy in general, is less of a simple farmers' tradition as we think.
This sort of literature flourished between the XIII and the XIV centuries, all over Europe, and especially there were not only the arts of fine cooking were more sought-after, but where the economic (and, hence, the political and cultural) power pulsated.
It is not a chance that gastronomic literature found so many and so noticeable exponents in Italy: the economic development, civil, technical, humanistic and artistic advancement of the many Comuni (Commons), was not having any equal at the time (possibly not only in Europe).
But it would be nave to believe that such a literature was produced either produced for the masses or that it represented the eating habits of vast portions of the population.
For these very reasons, it is really difficult to see how this farmers' reality might have contributed to the creation of many of the so called poor dishes in the italian food history, that really nothing poor have in them!
Let's have a quick look at the ingredients: durum wheat and/or barley flour, salt, water, yeastThe dough is manually processed and shaped like a small loaf, spiraled on itself.
Up to the first half of the 17 century, and by looking at the first documentations produced in 1861 (just after Italy's Unification) to give an account of the status of the italian population, endless accounts can be read of how precarious and poor the dietary conditions of the common people in the countryside were.
Spices were not only a precious trading good (since ancient times), they were a real status symbol, back then. Many traders made fortunes by discovering or inventing new trading routes, to supply the ever increasing demand for spices among the higher classes and, as a result of this trend-setting, more and more among lower classes too.
This fashion for spices was in a large part due to the desire to touch, feel, possess the exotic, whatever it was. Courts in medieval Italy (and across Europe) were resting on the everlasting battles to be recognised as the most rich, noticeable and extraordinary.
As a result, not only the culinary tastes chased one another, uniforming the gastronomies across the board, but this also made the most sought-after eating habits much less local than one could be lead to think: it was not the special savoy cabbage or golden apple that the noble classes were after; they sought what was NOT from the local territories. Anything that could make their fame, reputation and richness shine over others'.
This is the food that we have enjoyed for ages and continue to savor as we carry on the traditions of our past.
The typical way to taste this bread (alla barese) is covered in a layer of olive oil, water, tomato sauce and a drop of wine, then accompanied with small artichokes and lampascioni (tassel hyacinth). This culinary specialty is called in dialect from Bari cialldda (cialda in italian).
It is oven baked , then cut in half horizontally and it Is then baked again in the oven. The looks of the frisella is with one smooth and one rough surface.
That is, I, being Italian, can tell that it is not just food that we are talking about here: it is rather about a food culture that goes proudly along with an intimate connection italians have with the territory, the peoples and their roots.
If you think about it, after all, it was a natural consequence.Cities were, in fact, the only places where everything that was needed to develop a great gastronomy concentrated: ingredients and culinary skills, naturally, but also power, richness, markets and social competition. Italian gastronomy gives its best in the urban markets, less so in the countryside farms.
My recommendation to you, if you're willing to discover the traditional, genuine history of italian food, is not just to walk through the woods and the hills in Tuscany, but to walk through the many cities of the italian peninsula, smelling and tasting their specialties and listening to the stories about them and the people who created and still maintain them alive.
A Civilisation Of The Table
But, why do Italians eat so well?
As it might have become a familiar image to you, also in the Salento tradition, bread baking was done according to a common schedule at shared ovens. Bread could be baked bi-weekly or with an up to more than quarterly frequency, so that the quantity of the dough that a single family (or more families together, even) could amount to up to 200 Kilograms.
There are even studies that want to prove that the italian way of cooking and eating brings benefits to people's health and that it is, therefore, to learn and adopt in some of its gastronomic lessons.
Malnourishment and hunger are fundamental elements of the italian food history and all our accounts proceed through the food habits of the dominators and of the dominated, through the daily alimentation and the meals of the higher classes.
I woud say that italian food history combines elements of the italian alimentation history and of the italian gastronomy. But do not let my word fool you: this journey is going to be certainly a pleasure. Discovering means also uncover savors and tastes not known before.The deeper we will go together into the italian gastronomy, the more variety an richness comes to the surface.
It is like every single recipe or food has a history worth discovering and telling. Being exhaustive is going to be challenging, as this variety is sometimes disconcerting, the more if we start considering italian gastronomy outside Italy.
But, is this the reality?
Friselle have a characteristic shape, derived from their production process: they are typically circular and with a hole at their center.
Indeed these products are traditional and follow long prescribed preparation methods and processes, but observing more closely we will together discover that italian food history and, for that matter, of Italy in general, is less of a simple farmers' tradition as we think.
This sort of literature flourished between the XIII and the XIV centuries, all over Europe, and especially there were not only the arts of fine cooking were more sought-after, but where the economic (and, hence, the political and cultural) power pulsated.
It is not a chance that gastronomic literature found so many and so noticeable exponents in Italy: the economic development, civil, technical, humanistic and artistic advancement of the many Comuni (Commons), was not having any equal at the time (possibly not only in Europe).
But it would be nave to believe that such a literature was produced either produced for the masses or that it represented the eating habits of vast portions of the population.
For these very reasons, it is really difficult to see how this farmers' reality might have contributed to the creation of many of the so called poor dishes in the italian food history, that really nothing poor have in them!
Let's have a quick look at the ingredients: durum wheat and/or barley flour, salt, water, yeastThe dough is manually processed and shaped like a small loaf, spiraled on itself.
Up to the first half of the 17 century, and by looking at the first documentations produced in 1861 (just after Italy's Unification) to give an account of the status of the italian population, endless accounts can be read of how precarious and poor the dietary conditions of the common people in the countryside were.
Spices were not only a precious trading good (since ancient times), they were a real status symbol, back then. Many traders made fortunes by discovering or inventing new trading routes, to supply the ever increasing demand for spices among the higher classes and, as a result of this trend-setting, more and more among lower classes too.
This fashion for spices was in a large part due to the desire to touch, feel, possess the exotic, whatever it was. Courts in medieval Italy (and across Europe) were resting on the everlasting battles to be recognised as the most rich, noticeable and extraordinary.
As a result, not only the culinary tastes chased one another, uniforming the gastronomies across the board, but this also made the most sought-after eating habits much less local than one could be lead to think: it was not the special savoy cabbage or golden apple that the noble classes were after; they sought what was NOT from the local territories. Anything that could make their fame, reputation and richness shine over others'.
This is the food that we have enjoyed for ages and continue to savor as we carry on the traditions of our past.
The typical way to taste this bread (alla barese) is covered in a layer of olive oil, water, tomato sauce and a drop of wine, then accompanied with small artichokes and lampascioni (tassel hyacinth). This culinary specialty is called in dialect from Bari cialldda (cialda in italian).
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Many of you are probably researching about Italian food traditions. You can find some of the best information that you are looking for about these traditions on the Internet.
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