The perfect thing to make when it’s cool and rainy outside, warm and cosy inside. Schiacciata al rosmarino e pomodori. A hearth bread like focaccia (except this time made in the oven not a fireplace!) 💛🍅🌿
Tag Archives: Italian ancestry cooking
Italian hearth bread…
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Tagged as baking bread, focaccia, Italian ancestry cooking, Italian breadbaking, Italian breads, italian cooking, Italian hearth breads, Italian kitchen, Italian kitchen stories, pomodori, rainy day cooking, rosemary, rosmarino, Schiacciata, tomatoes baked in bread, tomotoes
Two dishes, from two regions and two bisnonne… Abruzzo and Calabria
When we cook the same dishes that our ancestors cooked it connects us to them, to our history and it also brings us back to something within ourselves that we mightn’t have thought of for some time or something we hadn’t yet discovered. Just the aroma of a dish cooking can release a trigger of deep memories that lets things rise up and take shape in us.
I grew up in Australia, far from where my great-grandmothers, Maddalena and Francesca lived in Italy. And yet, here I am, almost a century on, cooking the same dishes they cooked, a lovely connection to these two strong women. The dishes are maccheroni Calabrese (knitting needle pasta) and pasta alla chitarra (guitar pasta) made on a ‘chitarra box’ I got from Abruzzo. I sought to make sauces that reflected their history too. The maccheroni Calabrese (pasta rolled on a knitting needle for its shape) has a richer red sauce with melanzane and chillies that Francesca’s town of Palmi is known for. And the chitarra pasta has bitter, wild greens added to the passata, inspired by Maddalena walking hillsides near Fossa picking wild greens into her upturned apron and taking them back to cook with. It also has pecorino cheese on top because that part of Abruzzo is known for its sheep.
These dishes (pictured) are from my kitchen so they are a little rustic (as are their photos!) and mightn’t live up to those cooked by my bisnonne, but they made me feel happy and reminded me of those before and sometimes maybe that’s all we need when it comes to cooking.
Hope your next time cooking is delicious and joyful! Zoë xx
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Tagged as Abruzzo pasta, bisnonne cucina, Calabria pasta, chillies, cooking ancestors Italy, cooking and memories, family history cooking, Fossa Abruzzo, guitar pasta Abruzzo, Italian ancestry cooking, Italian migrant cooking, Italian migrant families, Italian migrant stories, Italian regional dishes, joyful cooking, knitting needle pasta Calabria, maccheroni Calabrese, melanzane, Palmi Calabira, passata, pasta alla chitarra, pecorino Abruzzo, wild greens