Popes, Peasants, and Shepherds. Oretta Zanini De Vita

      

      CALIFORNIA STUDIES IN FOOD AND CULTURE

      Darra Goldstein, Editor

      The publisher gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Ahmanson Foundation Humanities Endowment Fund of the University of California Press Foundation.

      The publisher also gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Humanities Endowment Fund of the University of California Press Foundation.

      Popes, Peasants,

      and Shepherds

      Popes, Peasants,

      and Shepherds

      RECIPES AND LORE

      FROM ROME AND LAZIO

      Oretta Zanini De Vita

      Translated by Maureen B. Fant

      With a foreword by Ernesto Di Renzo

      UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

      BERKELEY LOS ANGELES LONDON

      Series page: Cauliflower grower selling his harvest in the streets of Rome (Biblioteca Clementina, Anzio)

      Frontispiece: Bartolomeo Pinelli, Temple of the Sibyl at Tivoli (Biblioteca Clementina, Anzio)

      University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu.

      University of California Press

      Berkeley and Los Angeles, California

      University of California Press, Ltd.

      London, England

      © 2013 by Oretta Zanini De Vita

      A revised and expanded edition of Il Lazio a tavola : Guida gastronomica tra storia e tradizioni, originally published in Italian and simultaneously in English as The Food of Rome and Lazio: History, Folklore, and Recipes.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Zanini De Vita, Oretta, 1936–

      [Lazio a tavola. English]

      Popes, peasants, and shepherds : recipes and lore from Rome and Lazio / Oretta Zanini De Vita ; Translated by Maureen B. Fant.

      pages cm.—(California studies in food and culture ; 42)

      A revised and expanded edition of Il Lazio a tavola : Guida gastronomica tra storia e tradizioni, originally published in Italian.

      Includes bibliographical references and index.

      ISBN 978-0-520-27154-8 (cloth : alk. paper)

      eISBN 9780520955394

      1. Food habits—Italy—Rome. 2. Food habits—Italy—Lazio. 3. Cooking—Italy—Rome. 4. Cooking—Italy—Lazio. 5. Italians—Food. I. Title.

      TX723.2.R65Z36132013

      394.1’20945632—dc23

      2012038610

      Manufactured in the United States of America

      22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13

      10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (R2002) (Permanence of Paper).

      For my daughter, Chiara De Vita

      The Lazio region of Italy

      CONTENTS

      Foreword by Ernesto Di Renzo

      Translator’s Preface by Maureen B. Fant

      Acknowledgments

      Introduction

      The Agrarian Landscape of the Campagna Romana

      The Tiber and Fish in Popular Cooking

      Water and Aqueducts

      Mills on the Tiber: Bread and Pasta in Rome

      Rome and Its Gardens

      Sheep, Shepherds, and the Pastoral Kitchen

      Roads and Taverns

      Fairs and Markets

      Roman Carnival

      The Jewish Kitchen of the Roman Ghetto

      The Papal Table

      Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli, Poet of the Roman Kitchen

      Hollywood on the Tiber

      Traditional Sweets

      Olives

      Etruscan Lands: Viterbo and Tuscia

      Sabina, Land of Olive Trees and Hill Towns

      From the Castelli to the Ciociaria

      Buffalo Country: The Pontine Marshes

      Coastal Lazio and the Sea

      Recipes

       Thoughts on the Interpretation of Italian Recipes

       Primi piatti · First Courses

       Secondi piatti · Main Dishes

       Verdure e legumi · Vegetables and Legumes

       Sfizi · Savories

       Condimenti · Sauces and Condiments

       Dolci · Sweets

      Glossary of Terms and Ingredients

      Notes

      General Index

      Recipe Index

      FOREWORD: LAZIO’S GASTRONOMIC ROOTS

      ERNESTO DI RENZO

      The region of Lazio is a mosaic invented on paper between 1860 and the 1930s. The morphology, climate, and landscape of its territory are heterogeneous. Mountains alternate with plains, hills with coastal areas, valleys with lakes. Calcareous soils alternate with volcanic, woods with marshes, and maritime climates with continental.

      The interaction of these varied features, together with demographic dynamics that have more than once remade the ethnic composition of the population, has been felt in the economic-productive sphere as well as the gastronomic, predisposing the guiding principles of development in a fragmentary and heterogeneous sense. With the exception of the Rome metropolitan area, Lazio has always had a markedly rural identity, one in which the authentic “genetic” matrices of its territory can be seen in its agriculture and stock raising.

      Up to the end of World War II, agriculture, the true backbone of the regional economy, was practiced in a regime of substantial autarky, especially in the mountainous interior. The local communities grew grains, fruits and vegetables, vines, and olives, followed, under Arab influence and the discovery of the New World, by corn (maize), legumes, and tomatoes. The local biodiversity subsequently expanded to include a number of autochthonous foods that can be considered typical of certain localities. The list includes the green beans of Arsoli, the chickling vetch of Campodimele, the chestnuts of Vallerano, the pizzutello (pointed) grapes of Tivoli, the