Italian friselle (or freselle, frisedde, fresedde, frise) is a typical tarallo made essentially of durum wheat, combined in varying quantities with barley.
It is oven baked , then cut in half horizontally and it Is then baked again in the oven. The looks of the frisella is with one smooth and one rough surface.
That is, I, being Italian, can tell that it is not just food that we are talking about here: it is rather about a food culture that goes proudly along with an intimate connection italians have with the territory, the peoples and their roots.
The name with which friselle are also know in Apulia is Pane dei Crociati (Crusaders' bread) as it was certainly used to equip the christian expeditions in their long travellings.
My recommendation to you, if you're willing to discover the traditional, genuine history of italian food, is not just to walk through the woods and the hills in Tuscany, but to walk through the many cities of the italian peninsula, smelling and tasting their specialties and listening to the stories about them and the people who created and still maintain them alive.
This is a demonstration that italian gastronomy has nothing to envy to the one of other Countries.
Friselle were a typical travel-bread: that's why sea water was often used, or it was used as bottom for the fish soups, which were usually consumed during the days-long fishing expeditions in the open sea.
As it might have become a familiar image to you, also in the Salento tradition, bread baking was done according to a common schedule at shared ovens. Bread could be baked bi-weekly or with an up to more than quarterly frequency, so that the quantity of the dough that a single family (or more families together, even) could amount to up to 200 Kilograms.
There are even studies that want to prove that the italian way of cooking and eating brings benefits to people's health and that it is, therefore, to learn and adopt in some of its gastronomic lessons.
The rest of the dough, though, was reserved for the production of the friselle, which allowed for longer bread-making periods.
I woud say that italian food history combines elements of the italian alimentation history and of the italian gastronomy. But do not let my word fool you: this journey is going to be certainly a pleasure. Discovering means also uncover savors and tastes not known before.The deeper we will go together into the italian gastronomy, the more variety an richness comes to the surface.
This image has deeply contributed to the prominence that Italy has gained in the panorama of the worldwide gastronomy.
HOW THEY LOOK LIKE
Friselle have a characteristic shape, derived from their production process: they are typically circular and with a hole at their center.
Indeed these products are traditional and follow long prescribed preparation methods and processes, but observing more closely we will together discover that italian food history and, for that matter, of Italy in general, is less of a simple farmers' tradition as we think.
Characteristic is also the surface, rough where it Is cut after the first baking, smooth where it is remaining form the original manual shaping of the dough.
It is not a chance that gastronomic literature found so many and so noticeable exponents in Italy: the economic development, civil, technical, humanistic and artistic advancement of the many Comuni (Commons), was not having any equal at the time (possibly not only in Europe).
Italian history and italian food history has long been marked by the lifestyle of the rural masses: especially in the northern and central regions, the mezzadra (sharecropping) partially preserved farmers from hunger and the hard and grueling fatigues that represented the standard way of living of the rural masses throughout Italy, up to the 1960's.
HOW THEY ARE DONE
Let's have a quick look at the ingredients: durum wheat and/or barley flour, salt, water, yeastThe dough is manually processed and shaped like a small loaf, spiraled on itself.
Up to the first half of the 17 century, and by looking at the first documentations produced in 1861 (just after Italy's Unification) to give an account of the status of the italian population, endless accounts can be read of how precarious and poor the dietary conditions of the common people in the countryside were.
The two so obtained pieces, the lower one, with flat bottom, and the top, with the curved surface, are oven-baked for a second time (bis-cotto, twice-cooked) to eliminate the residual humidity.
This fashion for spices was in a large part due to the desire to touch, feel, possess the exotic, whatever it was. Courts in medieval Italy (and across Europe) were resting on the everlasting battles to be recognised as the most rich, noticeable and extraordinary.
This sauce has been one of the main ingredients of the farmers' diet throughout the past millennium and its recipe, thankfully, is only traceable in the memory: that sauce means hunger.
Try and dip it in cold water for a time depending on your taste and on the consistency of the dough. Serve then with fresh tomato, oregano, salt and some olive oil. As a variation, rub a slice of garlic on the frisella before moistening it.
The typical way to taste this bread (alla barese) is covered in a layer of olive oil, water, tomato sauce and a drop of wine, then accompanied with small artichokes and lampascioni (tassel hyacinth). This culinary specialty is called in dialect from Bari cialldda (cialda in italian).
It is oven baked , then cut in half horizontally and it Is then baked again in the oven. The looks of the frisella is with one smooth and one rough surface.
That is, I, being Italian, can tell that it is not just food that we are talking about here: it is rather about a food culture that goes proudly along with an intimate connection italians have with the territory, the peoples and their roots.
The name with which friselle are also know in Apulia is Pane dei Crociati (Crusaders' bread) as it was certainly used to equip the christian expeditions in their long travellings.
My recommendation to you, if you're willing to discover the traditional, genuine history of italian food, is not just to walk through the woods and the hills in Tuscany, but to walk through the many cities of the italian peninsula, smelling and tasting their specialties and listening to the stories about them and the people who created and still maintain them alive.
This is a demonstration that italian gastronomy has nothing to envy to the one of other Countries.
Friselle were a typical travel-bread: that's why sea water was often used, or it was used as bottom for the fish soups, which were usually consumed during the days-long fishing expeditions in the open sea.
As it might have become a familiar image to you, also in the Salento tradition, bread baking was done according to a common schedule at shared ovens. Bread could be baked bi-weekly or with an up to more than quarterly frequency, so that the quantity of the dough that a single family (or more families together, even) could amount to up to 200 Kilograms.
There are even studies that want to prove that the italian way of cooking and eating brings benefits to people's health and that it is, therefore, to learn and adopt in some of its gastronomic lessons.
The rest of the dough, though, was reserved for the production of the friselle, which allowed for longer bread-making periods.
I woud say that italian food history combines elements of the italian alimentation history and of the italian gastronomy. But do not let my word fool you: this journey is going to be certainly a pleasure. Discovering means also uncover savors and tastes not known before.The deeper we will go together into the italian gastronomy, the more variety an richness comes to the surface.
This image has deeply contributed to the prominence that Italy has gained in the panorama of the worldwide gastronomy.
HOW THEY LOOK LIKE
Friselle have a characteristic shape, derived from their production process: they are typically circular and with a hole at their center.
Indeed these products are traditional and follow long prescribed preparation methods and processes, but observing more closely we will together discover that italian food history and, for that matter, of Italy in general, is less of a simple farmers' tradition as we think.
Characteristic is also the surface, rough where it Is cut after the first baking, smooth where it is remaining form the original manual shaping of the dough.
It is not a chance that gastronomic literature found so many and so noticeable exponents in Italy: the economic development, civil, technical, humanistic and artistic advancement of the many Comuni (Commons), was not having any equal at the time (possibly not only in Europe).
Italian history and italian food history has long been marked by the lifestyle of the rural masses: especially in the northern and central regions, the mezzadra (sharecropping) partially preserved farmers from hunger and the hard and grueling fatigues that represented the standard way of living of the rural masses throughout Italy, up to the 1960's.
HOW THEY ARE DONE
Let's have a quick look at the ingredients: durum wheat and/or barley flour, salt, water, yeastThe dough is manually processed and shaped like a small loaf, spiraled on itself.
Up to the first half of the 17 century, and by looking at the first documentations produced in 1861 (just after Italy's Unification) to give an account of the status of the italian population, endless accounts can be read of how precarious and poor the dietary conditions of the common people in the countryside were.
The two so obtained pieces, the lower one, with flat bottom, and the top, with the curved surface, are oven-baked for a second time (bis-cotto, twice-cooked) to eliminate the residual humidity.
This fashion for spices was in a large part due to the desire to touch, feel, possess the exotic, whatever it was. Courts in medieval Italy (and across Europe) were resting on the everlasting battles to be recognised as the most rich, noticeable and extraordinary.
This sauce has been one of the main ingredients of the farmers' diet throughout the past millennium and its recipe, thankfully, is only traceable in the memory: that sauce means hunger.
Try and dip it in cold water for a time depending on your taste and on the consistency of the dough. Serve then with fresh tomato, oregano, salt and some olive oil. As a variation, rub a slice of garlic on the frisella before moistening it.
The typical way to taste this bread (alla barese) is covered in a layer of olive oil, water, tomato sauce and a drop of wine, then accompanied with small artichokes and lampascioni (tassel hyacinth). This culinary specialty is called in dialect from Bari cialldda (cialda in italian).
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