About Abruzzo

Category: Cuisine

women's hands stirring pots of Le Virtù 1

Cuisine

Le Virtù – the recipe

Gabriella shares with me her recipe for Le Virtù Teramane. It is neatly handwritten but I think I spot a mistake. It says the recipe serves 50. I’m assured it’s correct. Fifty, it seems, is a normal May Day lunch gathering around these parts. Several women take part in the preparation of a meal that will satisfy several families and a multitude of friends and hangers-on. Gabriella suggests I get in touch before making Le Virtù so she can give me some extra tips. I don’t tell her that the chances of me ever producing Le Virtù for 50 people are just marginally stronger than me winning the Eurovision...

legumes, ham and vegetables 0

Cuisine

Le Virtù

Back when spring cleaning was a thing, the women of Teramo would make a meal of it. At the end of April, they would clean out the pantry of all leftover vegetables and pulses and freshen up drawers and shelves in readiness for the summer fruits.  The wilting winter greens and various fresh and dried pulses – beans, chick peas, lentils – would then be combined, together with a ham bone or two and the new spring herbs foraged from the fields, in a hearty, flavoursome minestrone and served for lunch on May Day.    Origins Exhausting though spring cleaning may be, it can leave you feeling virtuous, which...

fiadoni from Abruzzo 0

Cuisine

Fiadoni

Fiadoni, an Easter tradition My favourite friendly casciaro (cheesemaker) at the Saturday morning market offers me some fiadoni from Rapino. It is still some weeks till Easter but how can I resist?  The fiadoni are light and golden and I serve them slightly warmed as an antipasto the next day at lunch. Fiadoni are, simply put, golden pastry parcels filled with cheese and egg. But it seems that nothing to do with cooking is simple in Abruzzo.  How do you make fiadoni? I ask three women one day.  And I am given three different versions.  Had there been 30 women in the room, I would have 30 recipes. And...

baked pasta dish 0

Cuisine

Mamma Ginetta’s Timballo

It is a Saturday afternoon in April and Easter Sunday lunch is looming. I am to help with the timballo. Because, says my mother-in-law, referring to her elder son, for Easter Sunday lunch that’s what he likes to eat. I mean no disrespect when I say that here she got it wrong. My husband appreciates good food but, untypically of the men of his region, he doesn’t really mind if it’s not traditional. Which, as he didn’t marry an Abruzzese, is just as well. Still, timballo seems like a good option for a festive lunch and I am here to learn. We lay everything out on the table in...

Arrosticini 1

Cuisine

Arrosticini

Arguably the dish most associated with Abruzzo is arrosticini. Which is unfortunate for vegetarians. Simply put, arrosticini are barbecued pieces of mutton on slim wooden skewers. But those are just words. They fail to do justice to the time, effort, care and attention – not to mention the art and tradition – that go into their production. The first time I ever had arrosticini was on a raw winter’s day. We were on our way back from a day’s skiing at Passo Lanciano when we spied a vendor on a street corner cooking meat on a grill. Ours was the kind of gnawing hunger that comes after a day...

tomato sauce 0

Cuisine

Tomato sauce

Hitting the bottle 5am seems sbsurdly early to be starting the day, even at the height of summer.  And yet here we are, a little bleary eyed, on our way to do the ‘bottiglie’ – the bottles of tomato sauce which will keep us in good supply over the coming winter. The venue is the garden of my mother-in-law’s childhood home and much of the work has already been done.  A hundred bottles have been gathered and washed in the huge sink in the stone outbuilding. Materials for the fire have been assembled, and crates of tomatoes brought in from the family plot. We light the fire and fill...