/ Our magazine / Meat abstinence: traditional recipes for Lent.
/ Our magazine / Meat abstinence: traditional recipes for Lent.
Do you still believe in religious precepts? Do you respect them? Is your daily life still marked by the Gregorian calendar? I would like to understand how many hands are being raised at this moment. Our country is atypical in the global landscape, as the presence of religious elements and attitudes influenced by a still predominant Christian calendar remain alive and persist across generations. However, if you travel a lot, you will know that in the globalized world, talking about Lent and eating lean seems to be gradually disappearing. Whether this is good or bad, we cannot say; the fact is that society has changed profoundly, and religious precepts are increasingly out of fashion among the men and women of this world.
We at Spaghetti & Mandolino, however, as you know, are contrarians at heart and, above all, we have a mission to support the history and Italian food and wine tradition, starting from the deepest roots of its ancestral expression. So, regarding Lent, for us, eating lean remains a precept. Let’s say we try in every way to resist temptation.
We will therefore introduce you to a series of products that you can prepare in the kitchen and stay within the “legality” of the liturgical time. Logically, we do not want to discriminate against any religion, but we simply want to reaffirm an ancient custom that anticipates Holy Easter by five weeks. In a sense, it is a fundamental element that has influenced the choice of foods and typical traditional recipes over the centuries.
There are still many timeless recipes that today find their way to tables not so much for what is believed, but due to a factor of culinary tradition passed down from generation to generation. If we were inhabitants of the Middle Ages, during the reign of Charlemagne, breaking the fast during lean periods was punishable by death. The Church, to avoid these reprisals, encouraged the faithful to observe fasting by prohibiting the sale of meat to butchers (except on Saturday after Vespers). This tradition remained almost dogmatic until not many years ago. We can safely say that until the 1960s, up until the end of the pre-conciliar era, the entire Church firmly upheld this principle. Subsequently, the obligation began to see a series of frays, and today there are few enclaves of believers who remain orthodox regarding this tradition.
But what was the list of foods to bring to the table once all those from terrestrial animal fats were excluded? Bread, polenta, vegetable soups or vegetable broths, herb-filled tortelli, fresh fish or preserved fish, pasta with vegetable sauces and with tomato. The true “companion” of the poor was the humble herring or saracca or renga, depending on the Italian regions where it was consumed. It was dry, salty, flavorful, and aromatic. In Veneto, particularly in Verona, on the day of Ash Wednesday, after Carnival, there was a Herring Festival that still sees thousands of participants each year. The Herring in the north of the country was logically associated with polenta, in its various versions: usually yellow, white in Venice, dark in Lombardy, and sometimes fried in the Po Valley. Since aside from the abstinence from meats, there was also fasting, in poorer families, the herring was sometimes hung on a beam and left to dangle over the table. The father or mother would rub the fish against the bread to add some flavor, and that was all. With a piece of herring, one could feed a large family. The fact that it was so salty prevented anyone from eating too much.
Another fish that dignifiedly replaced meat was baccala. A product that could be found from north to south of the country, with different recipes, adapted to the tastes and raw materials of the place. There is a proverb that says: “There is no Lent without baccala!” If you think about it, it's the only fish that can supply the body with some fats that would otherwise come from meat. The spread of baccala in Europe arose because in the 1500s the Church decided to extend the abstention from meat to every Wednesday and Friday of the year, amounting to a total of 150 days annually. Venetians became famous for their version, creamed with milk. The people from Vicenza made it one of the most identifying dishes of their tradition. In Emilia Romagna, Baccala in stew still endures today, while in the Marche it’s Baccala with potatoes, onions, and black olives. However, baccala is also a great dish in Sicilian and Neapolitan traditions. In short, it is a dish that has overcome the obstacles of the customs and traditions of peoples with different culinary traditions.
There were those who rebelled against the Church’s dogmas and set traps on the strictly meat, egg, and milk-free tables. Recipes that literally “mocked” (allow me this liberty of language) the Church and the clergy and all its restrictions. A very practiced recipe was the Counterfeit Egg. We present the text from a cookbook from the 1400s, “For the House of the Prince or Another Illustrious Family” of Florentine origin... there was no doubt!
"To prepare the egg, make a hole, remove the yolk and white and rinse the shells with warm water. Then take thick almond milk and keep it on the fire until it boils. Squeeze it in a cloth and put what remains on a plate. Reduce it like sugar, and mix one part with saffron, ginger, and cinnamon. Then put the white into the shell, and in the middle, the yellow that will serve as the yolk, and fill the egg again with white".
In Valle d'Itria, between the provinces of Taranto, Bari, and Brindisi, there is an enchanting landscape made of olive trees, palms, almond trees, and small curious structures: the Trulli. Alberobello is their historical capital. In this area, a typical and ancient recipe from Martina Franca is Ricci Ribbons with Anchovies. It is a lean dish, but its creaminess and consistency make it seem like a rich one. The ricci ribbons are divided into two types: mafaldine if they are ruffled on both sides, tripoldine if they are ruffled only on one side. The recipe mimics macaroni with pork sauce where the anchovies represent the meat, while the grated bread simulates cheese.
A regional recipe that can be used during Lent is undoubtedly the Sicilian one with Buzzonaglia, capers, and oregano. The Buzzonaglia of tuna is everything that remains after cutting and filleting the tuna. We can define it as the poor part of the tuna meat, but as often happens in the kitchen, poor does not rhyme with “bad flavor.” In fact, Buzzonaglia is an intense expression of the typical flavor of tuna and works excellently with pasta of a porous type typical of the south. In particular, beautiful Caserecce hold the tuna's flavor, its bits, and pieces of meat very well. In addition, excellent Sicilian capers and fresh oregano, all dressed with Sicilian Extra Virgin Olive Oil, transform a lean dish into a delightful and substantial seafood dish.
Bernardo Pasquali
S&M
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