When asked if I’d like to contribute a family recipe from Abruzzo to a charity cookbook, my first answer was, of course! That it will be helping save the dwindling population of Marsican brown bears in Abruzzo – wonderful! And that my recipe will be alongside those the likes of Niko Romito, a 3x Michelin star chef, Vincenzo’s Plate and food journalist, Rachel Roddy of the Guardian, I suddenly quaked. Ma dai! Really?! 👀
After some thought, the recipe I couldn’t go past is, Maccheroni alla chitarra with wild greens. I’ve known this dish from when I was a little girl, have cooked and eaten it in both Italy and Australia and it has ties to my Abruzzo ancestry going back more than 600 years. It’s also a lovely connection to Bisnonna Maddalena and Nonno Anni recalling her foraging for wild greens on hillsides around Fossa and carrying them in her apron back to the kitchen. (‘Maccheroni’ is the original Abruzzese name used for this dish, while in Italy’s north where maccheroni is a short pasta, it’s called ‘spaghetti alla chitarra’.)
Pictured for the cookbook is my chitarra – made of beechwood and strung with steel wires, which are ‘tuned’ like a guitar. A sheet of fresh pasta is laid across the wires and pressed through with a rolling pin. One side creates thin strands with a square profile, the other side, wider strands, like fettucine, as I’ve made here. In the little vases (old inkpots!) are some edible greens I picked – yes, I went foraging in the backyard, not quite the Abruzzo hillsides but I was amazed how much it yielded (and I double-checked they were safe to eat – dandelion leaves, cobbler’s pegs, purslane among them).
The napkin I chose is one Nanna Francesca brought me back from Italy many years ago and the fork is from a cutlery set bought in L’Aquila in 1970 by a Fossa relative, Pierina who gave it my parents who passed it down to me. Once you start delving into it, it’s incredible how much history can end up in sitting down to a bowl of pasta! 💚🍝 xxx
* An Abruzzo invention, the ‘chitarra’ dates back to at least the 1800s, its ancestor being a rolling pin with notches in it that cut the pasta into the wider strands. (Chitarra may be found in many shops, markets and online.) Will keep you posted when the cookbook is available. 😊
Recently, my cousin, Carlo (on Granny Maddalena’s side), who lives in Italy, revisited the area of our ancestors in Abruzzo and sent me these photos of pallotte cacio e ova that he’d cooked for the first time. His mother used to make this dish and our shared nonni in Abruzzo would make it too in times past.
In recent weeks, I’ve had some unexpected serious health news with a bit of a cancer scare. It’s all happened quite swiftly and following numerous tests, I’ve had abdominal surgery, been in hospital and am now back at home in what I’m told will be a six-week recovery. I’m extremely relieved and grateful to say that it was caught in time, I am in the clear and recovering well so far.
Making pasta alla chitarra just as my Abruzzese great-grandmother, Maddalena used to make. The shoebox-sized wooden box strung with steel wires must be ‘tuned’ like a guitar (chitarra). A sheet of pasta is laid over the strings and pressed through with a rolling pin, slicing it into strips. And the pasta sauce is like the ‘gravy’ Nanna Francesca cooked (with a few extra greens I added!)
Zoë Boccabella 