A Culinary Culture Based on Leftovers
I am always amazed at how many dishes in the Italian culture are made with leftovers. Until the 50s, Italy was a country where he discrepancies between rich and poor were stunning- a very small elite owned land and commerce, with a very large population making a living from cultivating the terre del padrone (the landowner’s land) in exchange for food and little else. My grandmother still tells me stories of food scarcity, and it is an imperative no-no in many families, up to this day, to let any sort of food go to waste.
I think it is because of this legacy of lack of food that many Italian dishes are made with leftovers from other dishes. Sometimes it’s the less noble part that gets incorporated in products for the masses (like egg whites and pumace), sometimes it’s just the need to make a certain amount of food last over many days, but some of the most inventive Italian recipes take off from leftovers!
Grappa, for example, is a drink that used to be relegated to small family production as it was made from the leftovers of wine making. Nowadays, it is considered a fancy way to recycle and reduce waste, which in these ecologically conscious times is always a plus, but reality is it was whatever the land workers could collect from the refuses of wine making that traditionally made the primary distillation ingredient. Similarly, think of meringhe, desserts made exclusively of egg whites and sugar: egg whites were leftovers from many preparations, and in many rich families the kids would get zabaione (egg yolks and sugar) as an afternoon snacks. That left the kids of the servants with meringhe!
A case of food stretching over several meals is represented by arancini, a southern specialty made with leftover risotto. The risotto is made in small balls filled with cheese and Bolognese, and then they are deep fried. Eat them right away and you will be able to experience all the reasons never to throw food out! Similarly, making stock is a complex matter that entails eating boiled chicken for a couple of days: first, warm out of the pot with olive oil and salt, and the following days mixed with homemade mayonnaise or salsa verde, a parsley, garlic and olive oil mix similar in texture to pesto. Not to mention the thousand of recipes that call for stale bread, like the delicious Pappa col Pomodoro!
The same concept applies to the famous saying “Del maiale non si butta via niente”- you never throw anything out from pork butchering. The nose-to-tail concept so in vogues these days (Chris Cosentino of Incanto makes of this philosophy his staple!) was born out of necessity in Italy. Pork’s shoulder, fillets, and legs are very famously used in prosciutti, ribs, chops and other traditional cuts. What happens to everything else? Intestines are used for sausage casing, the entire head is ground to make coppa di testa, a fatty salume, and even blood is used in sanguinaccio, a type of blood pudding, mixed with flour, chocolate and sugar. Everything that doesn’t find a place in a specific dish is then round and desiccated to make ciccioli, mostly fatty little snacks often served as a pairing to aperitivo.
Like these, many more dishes are taking their roots from a culinary history that is firmly rooted in lean times, when making something last a long time was essential to the whole family’s livelihood!
Filed under: Culinary Culture
[...] as children we were taught to only put on our plate what we needed, never to waste food, and to eat leftovers when there were [...]
[...] “frugal” at lunch still deserves your full attention. I, for one, am a HUGE fan of arancini, the deep-fried risotto balls filled with a center of red sauce, very typical in southern Italy [...]