This said, he goes on to present a detailed recipe in vernacolo vicentino (Vicentino dialect) for cooking up a furry one. We won't go into details, but he has you start by procuring a cat, under two years of age if possible, which you should carry home in a sack, lying if anyone asks what's in the bag, and when you finally set it on the table -- the preparation takes a week -- you should tell your guests it's rabbit, reserving the grim truth for the end of the meal, when they're all sipping grappa. The reaction will be "interesting, and they will certainly never set foot in your house again, nor greet you on the street."
As is often the case, however, there is a kernel of truth in the nickname; the countryside around the city of Vicenza, west of Venice, was extremely poor until the great economic boom of the 1960s transformed the region into an industrial powerhouse, and the traditional recipes are characterized by belt-tightening frugality.
Polenta was the kingpin of the diet, the basic element people could be certain of having, and that they would integrate with vegetables (leafy for the most part -- not much tomato), fish, or legumes; for a change of pace the populace resorted to simple soups. Meats were reserved for special occasions except in the houses of the wealthy, and for the general population even bread was a treat (see Dino Coltro's recollections of his boyhood diet). Pasta? The wealthy, who could afford flour and eggs, did enjoy pasta all'uovo -- egg noodles -- but, as is the case with much of northern Italy, pasta's role was relatively minor.
The industrial wealth that transformed the Vicentino in the past 50 years had a tremendous impact upon the cuisine as well; as people's economic lot improved they discarded the frugal recipes of old in favor of new foods that better reflected their changed circumstances, and didn't bring memories of hard times. Among the casualties was Minestra de Farina Zala, a cornmeal soup made by the farmers around Vicenza:
- 5 cups (1.25 liters) fresh whole milk
- 3/4 cup (80 g) finely ground cornmeal
- 1/4 cup (50 g) unsalted butter
- Salt
As Amedeo Sandri points out, this is essentially a dilute polenta, and as such is a splendid example of frugality: The farmers grew their own corn, and had cattle for milk, so the only things they would have had to procure were salt and sugar, and they could have replaced the latter with home-produced honey if need be. In introducing the recipe, Mr. Sandri says it was daily fare in the Vicentino until after War, but was subsequently abandoned, and had been almost completely forgotten by the time he began collecting the recipes for La Cucina Vicentina (Franco Muzzio Editore, 1980).
Rather than use old cookbooks, Mr. Sandri, who worked in restaurants of the Vicentino before going into publishing, went from house to house, talking with the cooks of the elder generation. In presenting the recipes he gathered he also discusses their history and the cultural forces behind them, thus recording a heritage that would be otherwise lost, and opening a fascinating window into a bygone era.
A Few Recipes
