Chick-peas and other pulses were everyday food in Roman times. Horace, in one of his Odes, talks of going home to his supper of lasagne and chick-peas – ciceri in Latin. Indeed, one of Cicero’s ancestors is said to have acquired the name because he had a wart on his nose that looked like a chick-pea. In the Middle Ages pulses were valued highly enough to be accepted as currency in the payment of taxes or alimony. By the Renaissance, however, pulses had fallen out of favour. In 1589 a doctor from Bologna, Baldassare Pisanelli, wrote that beans were ‘food for peasants, not suitable for refined people’. Worst of all, lentils ‘are harmful to melancholy people, make one have horrible dreams, fatten the blood in such a way that it cannot run in the veins . . . induce leprosy, cancer and other melancholy infirmities’.
All this reads very strangely nowadays, when pulses are considered among the healthiest of foods, and their popularity is so widespread. It is a well-deserved popularity, as they are quite delicious whether on their own, in combination with many other ingredients or mixed together in salads dressed with olive oil and generously flavoured with herbs.
The pulses that feature most often in Italian cooking are various varieties of the common bean, broad beans, lentils and chick-peas. The common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris), which reached Italy from the New World, quickly became a great favourite. It began to be successfully cultivated in Veneto early in the sixteenth century. It is said that Charles V gave a sack of these beans to Pope Clement VII, who in turn presented them to one Piero Valeriano, a tutor at the court of the Medici. Valeriano distributed the beans among the country people of Lamon, not far from his native Belluno, and when they planted some of these foreign beans an excellent crop resulted. Thus were born the fagioli di Lamon, which are large, with a very tender skin and a full flavour.
Different varieties were successfully developed from the fagioli di Lamon, of which the borlotti are perhaps the most popular. It is in northern Italian recipes that borlotti have come into their own, while Tuscany has given us the best ways to use the white cannellini. These include the ribollita, which is a soup based on cannellini and cavolo nero, and the fagioli all’uccelletto (dried beans with garlic, sage and oil). Just as remarkable are the various versions of pasta e fagioli from Veneto.
The motherland of broad beans is Puglia, where they are staple fare all year round. There, broad beans are mostly eaten dried, as in the excellent dish we had when we visited a farmhouse near Cisternino in Puglia. The first thing we noticed when Maria, the farmer’s wife, showed us around was that, although there was only one very small sitting room totally dedicated to a leather suite and a massive television set, there were no less than three kitchens – ‘one for everyday use, one for making pasta and the third for visitors,’ Maria explained. It was fairly late in the evening as we sat in the visitors’ kitchen drinking the strong local wine, but nonetheless a large bowl full of a purée of dried beans was placed in the middle of the table. Called ’ncapriata, it was a soft creamy mixture of puréed dried broad beans and boiled turnip tops, flavoured with garlic and generously dressed with thick local oil. Even after a good dinner, this simple dish was memorable. I have made it here in Britain, using turnip tops or the long cicoria sold in Greek shops. Dried broad beans are sold in healthfood stores and Greek and Turkish shops, often already peeled.
The lentils of Italy are the brown variety, which keep their shape when cooked. The best ones are from Castelluccio, a town in Umbria. They are small and dark brown, with a full, sweet flavour, and they cook in only 20 minutes. When I ate them in Spoleto for the first time I wondered what Esau would have sold, had Jacob given him a dish of these lentils instead of the yellow Egyptian ones. Certainly much more than his birthright!
Chick-peas, like broad beans, are more popular in the South, where they are cooked very simply and are often mixed with pasta. Perhaps their popularity is due to their reputation as an aphrodisiac; they are one of the few peasant foods for which this claim is made.