L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2026 www.italoamericano.org 24 L'Italo-Americano dough, usually made from flour and water and some- times a little oil, is divided i n t o p i e c e s a n d r o l l e d beneath the palms until each b e c o m e s a l o n g c o r d . I t s o u n d s e a s y e n o u g h , a n d with practice the movement becomes familiar, but the strands inevitably vary in thickness and length. Some will be slightly crooked, oth- ers thicker in the middle, because the pressure of the hands changes as the dough is rolled along the board. Tina Micheli of San Quirico d ' O r c i a , w h o c o n t i n u e d t e a c h i n g t h e t r a d i t i o n a l method into her eighties, explained that uniformity was never the aim. In fact, the irregular shape is one of the characteristics of hand- made pici, and anyone accus- tomed to preparing them at home would probably find a plate of perfectly identical strands rather strange. The distinction becomes e v e n m o r e i n t e r e s t i n g i n Lunigiana, where making t r a d i t i o n a l t e s t a r o l i i n v o l v e s a n o l d c o o k i n g Pilo. As often happens with customs handed down within a small community, the story survived, but the evidence of its veracity is scarce. Grussu spent years keeping these shapes in use, and finding people interested in learning them has not always been easy, because the work is painstaking, and unlike the more familiar Sardinian pas- tas, these forms remained c l o s e l y a s s o c i a t e d w i t h a small number of people. On the Italian mainland, traditional pasta-making pre- sents some interesting con- trasts; let's take pici, for instance, the thick, hand- rolled strands associated with Tuscany's Val d'Orcia and Val di Chiana. They are served in restaurants throughout the region and sold commercial- ly, so there is certainly no shortage of them, yet the tra- ditional preparation is worth looking at, because hand- made pici have a characteris- tic that industrial production generally tries to eliminate: they are not supposed to be p e r f e c t l y u n i f o r m . T h e method, largely abandoned outside of the area; unlike the other pastas we have consid- ered, testaroli begin with a batter of flour, water, and salt, which is poured into a testo, a heavy cooking vessel made in two parts. In the tra- ditional Pontremoli method, the lower half, called the sot- tano, is heated over a wood f i r e b e f o r e t h e b a t t e r i s added, and the upper half, the soprano, is placed over it. Together they form a small enclosed oven in which the batter cooks into a large disk, later cut into diamonds and briefly softened in hot water before being dressed with pesto or with oil and cheese. It is an old-fashioned way of cooking that requires rather more attention than turning on a burner, because the cook must first heat the testo prop- erly and then manage the fire so that the batter cooks even- l y . C o m m e r c i a l t e s t a r o l i , which are now widely avail- able, are generally prepared on steel plates heated by gas, a method that allows much better temperature control and makes it possible to pro- duce larger quantities. The r e s u l t i n g p a s t a m a y l o o k f a m i l i a r , b u t t h e c o o k i n g process changed consider- ably, and the heavy, two-part testo largely disappeared from modern production. Of course, Italian pasta- making changed enormously over the years, and commer- cial production made region- al specialties available far beyond the towns and vil- lages where they originated. That is hardly a bad thing, especially for people who might otherwise never have the chance to try them. But some preparations resisted m e c h a n i z a t i o n , e i t h e r because the movements are t o o i n t r i c a t e o r b e c a u s e r e p r o d u c i n g t h e m o n a n industrial scale would simply take more trouble than it is worth. And perhaps there is something rather wonderful about the fact that, after cen- turies of innovation in pasta- making, a few shapes still require somebody to sit down with a piece of dough and work out what to do with it, much as people have been doing for centuries. pared mainly at home, espe- cially around All Saints' Day, when families would gather to make them. Today they a r e c o n s i d e r a b l y b e t t e r known, and small producers sell them outside Sardinia, a l t h o u g h t h e t r a d i t i o n a l m e t h o d s t i l l r e q u i r e s t h e s a m e a m o u n t o f p a t i e n t handwork. There is no par- ticularly difficult recipe to master here: the time goes into shaping the rings, one after another, until there are enough to fill the pot. Anyone who has ever tried making fresh pasta for a large family will have some idea of how long that can take. Other Sar- dinian shapes have had a much narrower survival: in Masullas, Giorgio Grussu has worked to preserve two unusual forms of pasta, cro- goristas, shaped like roost- ers, and caombas , little doves associated with local ceremonial traditions. The o r i g i n s o f t h e d o v e s a r e u n c e r t a i n , a l t h o u g h o n e account connects them with an eighteenth-century visit by Bishop Giuseppe Maria I n Nuoro, Sardinia, there is a pasta made from semolina, water, and salt that very few people know how to prepare. It is called su filin- deu, meaning "threads of God," and although its ingre- dients are the same ones used for countless other Italian pastas, the preparation is so demanding that the tradi- tional method has survived in the hands of only a small number of people. Even an experienced cook would have trouble making it without being shown how, because much of the work depends on judging the dough by touch. The preparation begins with kneading, and the dough m u s t b e w o r k e d u n t i l i t reaches a particular elasticity, firm enough to hold together b u t s u p p l e e n o u g h t o b e stretched repeatedly without breaking. Once the maker is satisfied, a piece is pulled, d o u b l e d o v e r , a n d p u l l e d again, eight times in succes- sion, until it has become 256 strands as fine as hair. These are laid across a round frame, t r a d i t i o n a l l y m a d e f r o m asphodel, in three intersect- ing layers, then left to dry until they form a thin, deli- cate sheet. When it is time to cook, the sheet is broken into p i e c e s a n d d r o p p e d i n t o s h e e p b r o t h w i t h f r e s h pecorino, a dish traditionally prepared for pilgrims travel- ing to the sanctuary of San Francesco at Lula in May and October. The real difficulty here lies in getting the dough to cooperate, something even a detailed recipe cannot guar- antee: it may need more salt- ed water, or a little more kneading, and the person making it has to recognize t h e d i f f e r e n c e b e f o r e attempting another stretch. Sardinia has several other t r a d i t i o n a l p a s t a s t h a t demand a similar familiarity with the dough, although their shapes are entirely dif- ferent. In Morgongiori, a small village in the central part of the island, lorighit- tas are made by taking two thin ropes of dough, winding them around the fingers, and twisting them together into a braided ring. Each one is formed individually, which means that preparing enough for a family meal involves r e p e a t i n g t h e m o v e m e n t hundreds of times. For gener- ations, lorighittas were pre- Ordinary ingredients, extraordinary skill: Italy's rarest pastas CHIARA D'ALESSIO Testaroli al pesto, a traditional dish from Lunigiana, the historic region between Tuscany and Liguria (Photo: Marco Guidi/Dreamstime); below, the delicate, handmade strands of su filindeu, the "threads of God" (Original image created for L'Italo-Americano with the assistance of AI) LA BUONA TAVOLA RECIPES COOKING TIPS SEASONAL DISHES

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