Italian Cooking is well known the world over but few know that most of its recipes were not created by highly trained chefs but by “regular” people – mothers preparing healthy food for their children, fishermen coming back from sea, peasants. These people created our cuisine with ingredients they could easily find in their vegetable garden or barnyards.

Beyond every recipe there’s a story, the reason why it was created. That’s why many times when Italians are asked to change their recipes, they’ll answer, ”Yes, you can add this or that, but the traditional recipe says. . . “

Italians do not like to change a recipe from what they learned and tasted when they were children. When we Italians eat we also feel and know what the dish means – it reminds us of something in our childhood or in Italian history. Cooking is so much a part of the Italian soul that our food is always much better when eaten with a family or in a family restaurant.

Some of our dishes, like pizza and spaghetti, have very famous and charming histories. But other, lesser known foods are just as charming. In Chianti, famous for its wines, winter brings out some festive recipes that go back hundreds of years.

I’ll start with my favorite winter recipe because it reminds me of the nice old woman who lives next door to us. She was born in Chianti and has always lived here. She knows everybody in this neighborhood, many of whom are her relatives.

The first Christmas we were here, having moved from what she called “the town,” she welcomed us by bringing us a traditional cake that the people of Chianti say brings good luck. Now, 15 years later, we bake one together every Christmas, talking up a storm about all the people we now know, about newborn babies and all the local news.  

Il Serpe (The Serpent)

Serpe is the Tuscan word for snake. Two centuries ago in Chianti many people worked in the fields. Their routines often made it necessary for them to put their hands into small holes among stones or piles of wood. When they were tired or in a hurry, they’d forget to be careful and sometimes would accidentally reach in and touch a viper. Fortunately, the snakes, which were the only dangerous animals in Chianti’s fields, weren’t able to inflict a deadly bite, although their poison could cause nerve damage.

To counter their fear of snakes, people created a good luck charm against them in the form of a serpent-shaped cake made with almonds. To this day people prepare this “snake” and eat it on Christmas Day as a defense against vipers’ bites.

Ingredients:

• 300g (11 oz.) very-finely-ground almonds

• 3 stiffly-whisked egg whites   

• A handful of pine-nuts

• 150g (5.5 oz.) very-finely-ground candied lime

• 300g (11 oz.) sugar

• 2 coffee beans

Work together almonds, sugar and candied lime, adding the whisked egg whites a little at a time. The mixture must be dense, not too runny. Make the mixture into the shape of a snake. Decorate with the pine-nuts in a herring-bone pattern. Use the coffee beans for the eyes and a piece of candied lime for the tongue. Cover the head and tail with aluminum foil. Bake in the oven at 150°C (300 F) for 30 minutes.

Panforte (or Pampepato)

Of course we have to talk about one of the most important Sienese tradition, panforte. Panforte is a kind of cake that has existed since the 1300s. Nowadays most people don’t prepare it at home because it takes a lot of time and not everybody in the family eats it because it is full of almonds and spices. Most people buy it hand-made in Siena or from pastry shops that are familiar with the recipe.

The legend of panforte’s origin tells of a shepherd boy who goes to see where the baby Jesus has been born and gives St. Joseph his last piece of food, a poor morsel made of bread and almonds. Disconsolate that he cannot give a richer present, he returns home to his grandmother, remembering the times when his mother was still with him and his father was not away with the Roman soldiers.

When he arrives home he is amazed to find a rich dinner made of honey, almonds, candies and bread on the table before him. There is nobody else in sight, so he knows that the dinner is a miracle.

Since its creation, panforte, or more precisely, panpepato, has been Siena’s main Christmas cake, symbolizing the unity and importance of all the persons of the family.

Ingredients:

• 400g (14 oz.) candied melon

• 50g (2 oz.) candied orange

• 350g (12 oz.) sugar

• 350g (12 oz.) almonds

• 150g (5 oz.) flour

• 6g (1/5 oz) coriander 

• 3g (1/10 oz) ground mace

• A few ground cloves

• ground black pepper

• 5g (1/6 oz.) ground cinnamon 

Melt the sugar with a little bit of water. Mix the syrup – not caramelized – with the flour, chopped candied fruits, almonds, spice and cinnamon, Pour  it onto a confectioner wafer in a pan, smoothing out the mixture. Cover with chopped coriander and cinnamon, place in the oven and bake for about half an hour at 175 C (350 F). Remove and cover  with confectionary sugar; serve it the day after it is baked.

Baccala dei Panfortai

Traditionally Chianti was a poor countryside, very different from today. People who were good at cooking had to work in town at a restaurant or, in Siena, in a patisserie. As Christmas neared, all the patisseries began preparing panforte and many people in Chianti became known as panfortai – panforte makers.

But their work was temporary and ended before Christmas when all the panforte were finally ready to sell. To celebrate the holiday and have a party together before returning to the country and going their separate ways, the panfortai would thoroughly clean their baking pans and then make ready to create casseroles based on baccalà – dried salted cod.

Baccala had always been considered by people to be neither meat nor fish, but good for everybody. The panfortai would soak it in water for two days, changing the water every six hours to make sure the salt was washed away. Then they’d take their panforte pans and pour in oil, then add onions, bombolini (tomatoes that had been hanging and curing outside since August), ground pepper, wine and the salted cod, and pop it into the oven for an hour.

This “baccala dei panfortai” made for a memorable feast!

Buon appetito e Buone Feste!