Bread and pastry products

The fertile lands of Etruria provided the Romans with a rich granary, connected to Rome via the Tiber and its tributaries. Not all  varieties of grain were suitable for bread-making and some of them were used for other mixtures and “polenta”.  The Roman diet, and that of the Mediterranean peoples in general, was however centered on bread. With the barbarian invasions, cereal, vine and olive growing became marginal occupations and a mixed system of agriculture, exploitation of the woodlands, and sheep-farming  fostered the spread of products of animal and vegetable origin. Wheat, a valued crop typical of the classic agricultural structure, suffered most in these changes and in the early Middle Ages. It was surpassed by lesser grains such as barley, spelt, oats, millet, Italian millet, sorghum and rye. Even so, for religious reasons a special role was always reserved for bread. Bread, oil and wine were highly significant symbols for Christianity Europe. In the eleventh century bread began to play a decisive role among the working classes, and other foods were considered secondary, something to go with bread. Recurrent production crises often brought to their knees millions of country folks and forced them to mix flour with grasses or even earth or to grind acorns into flour. (as was the case in the area of Orvieto up to the seventeenth-eighteenth century). It was not until more modern farming techniques were developed in the twentieth century,  that a sufficient quantity of the more prized grain could be produced.  For years, in the countryside white bread was considered a luxury. In many farmhouses of the  Orvieto area there is still a wood-burning oven in which bread for the family was baked once a week. It was kept in the bread-bin and wrapped in a hempen cloth, which preserved it till the next baking. In the twentieth-century agrarian culture, knowing how to make bread was one of the skills a young girl had to have before getting married. The wider availability of wheat encouraged the production of  “calendar breads”, that is bread related to anniversaries and holidays. The “lumachella” (snail), a typical product of  traditional Orvieto baked goods, is a good example of this type in the rural ambience. Pieces of bacon, salt pork or ham, pecorino cheese, salt, pepper, olive oil are added to the bread dough, made with flour, water and  yeast (some recipes also add eggs). The dough is kneaded until it is smooth and elastic and is then left to rest for about 20 minutes, after which it is shaped into a “snail” by coiling a finger-thick roll of dough. The Easter cheese bread is another product closely related to Umbrian tradition: this bread was usually made during Easter week, beginning with Holy Thursday, at the end of Lent. The rich seasoning – different kinds of cheese, grated or cut into pieces, eggs, milk, ground pepper and other spices – seems at odds with the strict diet of the penitential period, almost as if an eating spree was a way of stressing the return of spring and the generative forces of  Nature. The Easter cheese bread is traditionally served at Easter breakfast with “capocollo”, a tasty salami made with pork neck that is ready to be eaten just at Easter. Boiled “anised rings” were connected to threshing. The ingredients are: “good” oil, flour, yeast, aniseeds and salt. The yeast is dissolved in warm water; the dough is left to rise for about 15 minutes and then shaped into small doughnuts. These are plunged into boiling salted water, then laid on an oiled  cookie  tin and baked. Many traditional local pastry products are related to the rural food traditions such as “tozzetti”, “pappole”, and a cookie or biscuit made with aniseeds, wine and a little sugar that goes well with medium sweet red wines.  In recent years local pastry makers have also rediscovered Umbrian and local tradition and the new generation of bakers and pastry cooks has earned praise and market approval.