Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Gold of Pisa

Gold of Pisa, torta di ceci, chickpea pie, cecina, farinata, LivornoDo not be distracted by the surrounding stuff, our subject is the round yellow thing just in the middle of the photo: this is a real “teglia di torta” (pan of chickpea pie). Trillian already explained something about “torta” in a post about the “cinque e cinque”, now let's talk of history, or more probably of legends.
One of these legends says that “torta” was created purely by chance and hunger in 1284, after Genoa defeated Pisa in the battle of Meloria, just in front of Livorno. Returning home the Genoese ships were hit by a storm and, inside the hold, overturned barrels of oil and broken sacks of chickpeas mixed with some salt water.
Being on limited supplies and notoriously parsimonious, the Genoese salvaged what they could and the sailors were served a sort of oily chickpea soup. Trying to make the dish more edible someone left it in the sun to dry, with palatable results. Derisively the sailors called it Pisa's Gold. Back to to Genoa, they greatly improved the new dish baking it in a real oven: the “farinata” or “fainé”, as they call it in Genoa, was born. The new dish was soon known all along the coast: in Pisa is now called “cecìna” and in Nice “socca”.
Variants to this legend have the Pisan prisoners from the battle discovering the magic mix, or even hungry roman legionaries left without floor concocting it centuries before.

See also: Five and five
External links: Farinata (Wikipedia)

12 comments:

Baruch said...

Interesting information. I have never eaten a chickpea pie but it looks yummy though

Anonymous said...

Your explanation of the pan of chickpea pie was fantastic. You have a gift for writing. I even had to look up parsimonious to see what it mean though I did suspect its meaning. LOL. Nice post.

Abraham Lincoln
Brookville Daily Photo

Julie ScottsdaleDailyPhoto.com said...

excellent photo and information. I never new about chickpea pie. thanks

Marcel said...

Chickpea pie, is it good? I like chickpeas like hummus. I didn't realize you can make a pie with it..

Layrayski said...

what a delicious looking photo. The story behind the pie is also as wonderful.

Ming the Merciless said...

I don't think I have ever tasted this kind of 'torta' before but it sounds delicious and looks super appealing.

And I especially love the history behind its discovery/creation. Simple foods are always the best thing.

Saretta said...

Fascinating! I've never tried that before.

max said...

hmmmmmmmmmmm!!

Mary Stebbins Taitt said...

all that other stuff is very distracting, though, and looks delicious! Yum yum! Nice capture.

I cannot eat chickpeas, I'm allergic to them--but I love them.

Copenhagen said...

Yum...delicious.

angela said...

If it's like socca then I'm sure to love it...it's an interesting story. Is it true, do you think?

Birdman said...

Love the historical look at chick peas pizza.
I might pass though. Is that round meat in bread roll to left? Here we call them 'pigs in a blanket'. (hotdogs in a bread roll)