Culinary Heritage
Over the last two years, we have been working on a project to celebrate the culinary heritage of Molise. This is a collaboration with the Federazione delle associazioni molisane del Quebec, Cassandra Marsillo (oral historian), Vee Di Gregorio (photographer), and Joseph D’Alleva (chef) and Erica Marsillo (pastry chef) of Rita Restaurant.
Join us on a of the towns and tables of Molise, through the recipes and stories from over 30 community members representing 21 towns from the region. More information about this project coming soon.
Conechielle di Bojano
This fried dessert is similar to the Neapolitan chiacchiere.
The dough is wrapped in a particular way and sprinkled with sugar after frying.
These are made for carnevale.
The recipe was submitted by Filomena, who was born in Bojano and immigrated to Canada in the 50s. In her interview, besides describing her recipe, she also spent time talking about her big family. The oldest of seven, Filomena is a nonna and bisnonna to 10 children. They've now reached the fifth generation here in Montreal. Due to her big family, her usual conechielle recipes calls for 24 eggs.
Listen to Filomena speak about her family traditions in the sound clip on the left.
Pizza di San Martino
Giovanna Tamburro Niro submitted this recipe for pizza di San Martino. Giovanna was seven years old the first time she went to Baranello, a comune south of Campobasso. For Giovanna, Baranello feels like a second home. She has built strong relationships with the people there. Growing up, her parents always sought to keep the memory of both their hometowns - Baranello and Sepino - alive in her through the stories they told and the traditions they upheld. She remembers them talking often about farming, dancing, and (of course) food. She also learned a lot about traditional baranellese cooking from her mother-in-law.
The pizza di San Martino is made on November 11 for the Festa di San Martino, celebrating the year's harvest. Listen to Giovanna tell the story of this recipe in the sound clip to the right.
