It’s not like I only consider Liguria’s cuisine when talking about Italy, it’s just that I love it and it’s one of the simplest regional cuisines across the country.
I will touch northern Italy cuisine soon, but today it’s Farinata‘s turn; I’m picking the Ligurian name just because is the most famous, but the dish is actually spread from Tuscany to France Côte d’Azur, passing by Sardegna and also in several far places where Italian and Genova’s immigrants established, like Argentina and Gibraltar.
Farinata is a chickpeas flour flat bread, traditionally baked in a wooden oven over a large pan named testo (where the traditional pasta testaroli is also cooked), and has seemingly a long history: chickpeas were one of the first pulses to be domesticated in the modern Turkey region at least 7000 years ago (leading to delicacies like hummus or falafel, for example), and were brought to the Mediterranean region not much later; there are several proofs that Romans already knew pretty well chickpeas and chickpeas flour, and this doesn’t come as a surprise considering the nutritional properties of chickpeas and their versatility: the surname Cicero comes from the job of chickpeas farmer, but seems like chickpeas were initially looked upon since they were massively consumed by Carthaginians, Rome sworn enemy.
I’m astonished that, despite all the farinata I ate over the years, I have no decent picture of it, so here it’s a stock photo of a freshly baked farinata
The first legends about farinata’s origin dates to Roman era, where it’s said that soldiers would cook a batter of water and chickpeas flour into their iron shields, under the sun, whenever wheat flour would be unavailable; the most believed story instead comes some centuries later, specifically during 1284 war between Genova and Pisa, and the story goes that Genova’s ships were coming back after the victory against Pisa’s fleet when they encountered a tempest, and barrels of chickpea flour and oil broke and got soaked with seawater; a mixture of this soaked flour and oil with seawater to be still served to the prisoner as there wasn’t other food available, ending with the refusal of the prisoners to eat it, leaving the mixture under the sun; when the hunger got unrearable, they ate the dried out batter and found out it was delicious, hence the idea of properly cooking it in an oven once they came back to Genova, and naming it “Gold of Pisa” to mock the losing side; the first written proof of the farinata as a staple Genovese food comes from a law dating back to 1477, where use of bad oil for cooking farinata was sanctioned.
Chickpeas were indeed relevant during Italian medieval period, for example when their name was used, during Sicily’s War of the Vespers against Angevin French, to identify them based on the way people pronounced ciciri, thus marking them off as french oppressors to be killed.
A square farinata, from a square tray, still good
As I said, farinata is traditionally cooked in wooden oven, spread onto a large copper testo, thus making it somehow hard to replicate the result in an home kitchen, but it’s far from impossible: using a large tray and a normal electric oven, with the right settings of heating mode and temperature, you can still achieve some pretty decent results.
Luckily, I live not far from Ligury so I manage at least once or twice every year to eat some real farinata cooked in those tiny sciamadda, the traditional farinata places in the narrow alleys of Ligury’s cities, but I also often cook it at home considering the low difficulty the recipe actually has, with soaking the flour some hours in advance being the only real requirment for a good end result.
The recipe itself is almost not even a recipe: take the chickpea flour, drown it with water (something like 1:2 flour to water ratio) add a pinch of salt and let it rest from a couple of hours to overnight or more, then once the resting time is over generously oil your pan of choice, possibly a steel or even better a copper pan, preheat the oven to the highest setting you can and possibly to the grill mode and then pour the batter in your pan, mixing it gently to incorporate the excess oil in the batter and finally if you like a touch of rosemary, bay leaves, pepper or basil; put it in the heaven, cook for not more than 10 minutes and you are ready.
A beautifully golden and round farinata, right from my oven (The border is actually a bit more than golden)
Depending on your pan it could be possible that the bottom sticks to the pan surface, deal with it; get the farinata outside the pan and serve, and if you want you can top it with some soft cheese or pesto; alternatively, you can toss in the batter onions, artichokes or green herbs to cook along with the farinata, in order to get like a stuffed cake.
You can’t really beat farinata straight from a wooden oven, but you can definitely master what you have at disposal to get the closest possible, and you will not be let down!
