elcome to the second episode in the Pasta and Perseverance series exploring regional pastas made with so-called “inferior grains.”
The object of this exploration is to enter into the history of pasta on various levels: first through an overview of the historical context, and then through a sensory experience including not only the olfactory perspective, but the very act of preparing it. The pasta featured in Part II is the Calabrian rye pasta cordelle.
Rye in Southern Italy, really?
The record of rye in Europe is sketchy until the Bronze Age (1800-1500 BCE). As for the Romans, they had little good to say about any grain that wasn’t wheat, and of rye Pliny coughed: “It is a very poor food useful only to stave off starvation […] it is a dark sombre color and exceptionally heavy.” Even if diluted with emmer to dispel the bitterness, “it is still does not agree with the stomach,” (XVIII, 40). In a word, it was barbaric. While barley, as discussed in the last post, was considered suitable for slaves, prisoners, and low-ranking military, rye was principally animal fodder. Oats were hardly worth mentioning. According to Pliny, they were surely the result of some unfortunate botanical mishap.
Greco-Roman physician Galen (129-210 CE) was unfamiliar with rye until he happened upon it in northern Greece. He described the rye bread he tasted there as black and malodorous and gave the grain no consideration in his writings. The earliest traces of rye in southern Italy below Campania date after the fall of the Roman Empire - evidence that rye was not one of the many foods that came into the mediterranean basin with Greek colonization.
Italy’s southern regions
You wouldn’t think to associate Calabria, one of Italy’s warmest regions, with rye, which requires a hard frost to catalyze growth. However, rye adapted well to the cold, dry winters of the Calabrian mountains above 750 meters, climatic conditions that are inhospitable to wheat. The regional dialect words for rye ‘Irmanu’, ‘Irumanu’, ‘Irmana’, ‘Jurmanu’, ‘Jermanu’, ‘Iermana’, ‘Granuiermanu’ indicate the association of the grain with Germany as its origin. However, over the centuries, rye assimilated into the inland Calabrian agricultural landscape, indeed, in recent decades, the region has become Italy’s leading rye producer, which has been a boon to their economy.
Given the recent interest in “alternative” and “ancient” grains, Calabria is pushing to make a profit from its rye production . Manufacture has increased in rye cookies, taralli, crackers, breads, and even pizza - but no one is is talking about rye pasta.
Cordelle and the cucina Grecanica
An image of a Grecanica woman from a southern Italian vase
Pinpointed on the map above is the area called Bovesia, where an ethnic enclave called Grecanici or Griko people live. They are purportedly descendants of a Hellenic tribe , part of the Ancient Greek migration to the vast expanse of colonies of Magna Graecia, which took root in the 8th century BCE. After centuries of tumultuous takeovers, the Greeks became fully Latinized, but a second wave of migrants began in the 5th century CE at which time they formed a diaspora which allowed for the continuation of their ancient dialect and culture, surviving even Charlemagne’s efforts to unite Europe linguistically through Latin.
The Grecanici are officially recognized as an ethnic minority for which the government protects their culture and language, Calabrian Greek (Grecu-càlabbru), which is in the UNESCO Red Book of endangered dialects.
Italia
The geographic name Italia was first used for the southern part of Calabria. The Greeks later applied that to the entire southern part of the peninsula. After the Roman conquest, the term was explanded to include the expanse of the peninsula up to and including the Alpine region.
One of the reasons the Grecanici were able to maintain their culture is because of their geographical isolation. Bovesia is situated in the Aspromonte massif, whose highest peak rises to 1,956 meters, and not unsurprisingly, the traditional cuisine of the area is the spartan fare of shepherds. Barley, acorns, chestnuts, corn, and rye were an integral part of their cuisine - out of which comes the rye pasta cordelle or in dialect cordeddi cu sucu, a pasta which, like their language, is fading into extinction. What might have accounted for this?
Cordelle are, as the name implies, thick cords of pasta enriched with eggs and milk - most likely goats milk, although that information is unavailable. The pasta is made from a hand rolled technique similar to the better known pici. However, given the lack of gluten in rye, cordelle require a much more skilled hand and patient disposition as the cords break easily.
The final dish is simply dressed with garlic and chilis sautéed in olive oil and sprinkled with a mix of aged goats cheese and pecorino Romano. Let’s walk through the recipe.
Cordelle - Cordeddi cu sucu
INGREDIENTS
250g whole rye flour
2 eggs
40-50g whole milk - optional goat milk
oil for your hands
[sauce]
1/4 cup olive oil
4 cloves garlic smashed
hot chili pepper flakes to taste
Grated cheese to finish: hard goat cheese and pecorino romano
Your mis en scene (The cup appears disproportionately large).
Make a well with the flour and add the liquid ingredients. Mix with a fork and then slowly incorporate the flour into the liquids.
Knead for 10-15 minuets. It will become smooth but not as elastic as a wheat based dough.
Form a ball, wrap in plastic, and leave to rest for an hour.
Lightly oil your hands and make two or three thick ropes. Cover the rope(s) you are not using and set them aside.
Keep your hands flat and roll one end of the rope out to a bit less than the thickness of a pencil. All the while that you are doing this you want to keep the dough slightly oily and your hands slightly - slightly - damp. This works best on a wooden surface.
As you work, continue to roll the finished product into a coil.
This is part of the artistry of the preparation - significantly, it is not necessary in the least for the finished product, but is part of the characteristic of how it is executed. You can also make small coils, which is certainly easier. In the end, they will be cut anyway. The coils are part of the culinary identity, the subtleties that differentiate one method of preparation from another and signal belonging.
The sources that I was able to consult about this said leave them to dry out for a while. I am not sure why this was necessary, but I left them a couple hours. ‘Dry’ does not mean bone dry, more like ‘not moist.’
Put a pot of salted water on to boil and prepare the sauce.
Heat the oil and fry the garlic and chili until the garlic starts to brown. Turn off the heat.
NB: I cut these in half again after this photo.
Cut the dough in lengths that are about from the tip of your middle finger to the end of the palm of your hand. You don’t have to be too fussy about this.
Carefully place them in the boiling water. Cook for 10 minutes. Give it a stir to make sure they don’t stick to each other.
Turn the flame on medium high under the garlic oil. Using a strainer, lift the pasta from the water and put it in the skillet.
Pour a ladle of pasta water onto the pasta and continue cooking for another 10-12 minutes. Add more of the pasta water as needed.
After the last post on suddhi, the most FAQ was how they tasted. I had purposely avoided discussing that aspect in the post itself because the point of the exercise was the experience of these pastas that were and integral part of the survival of a community. Here too, if wheat had been available or affordable, it would have been the preferred choice - and you would have pici or umbricelli. ‘Rustic’ has become a romantic term, but if we strip away those modern connotations, this is the word I would use to describe cordelle. It is a rough, no frills dish that in the context fulfilled its purpose: it was warm, filling, and nutritious. I enjoyed it and learned what I set out to from the experience, but, yes, there are other regional pastas using “inferior grains” that I would recommend before this one.