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)
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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