A few years ago, during a long stay in Roseto - once a fishing village, now a holiday resort on the Adriatic coast of Italy, between Pescara and
Ancona - we decided to ask Silvia’s mother, Ada, to commit to paper the
wonderful food that she was preparing for us every day. This
web site and a recipe book are the result. They contain mostly typical Abruzzese
recipes, since Ada grew up in this area and still cooks the dishes that
she remembers from her girlhood.
Italy, of course, is famous for its
regional cooking, but outside Italy
people have mostly become familiar
with the cooking of Bologna - with its
rich creamy meat sauces - and
Tuscany - its hearty soups fortified
with bread - or the Neapolitan pizza.
The unique dishes of Abruzzo are
less well known.
Italians remain fiercely proud of their
local traditions, which exist in
enormous profusion, with variations
in language, food and wines between
even adjacent towns and villages.
This is as true of the region of
Abruzzo as of anywhere else, and
the special pasta made "alla chitarra",
the scrippelle, the ravioli filled with
ricotta and marjoram, and many other
delicious dishes in this book are as
typical as you may find.
There are many sayings and
proverbs in the Abruzzese dialect,
some deeply philosophical, some
profound, and others darkly cryptic.
As the following proverb says, "Oro,
vino, amico e servitore, più vecchio è
migliore", meaning "Gold, wine, friends
and servants, the older the better” : in
other words, these old recipes are
definitely worth recreating.
