Ingredients
For recipe see Italy Revisited/Recipes/ "Italian Meat Dishes"
Directions
Notes
People living in the countryside brought their own food when they went on a pilgrimage. There were no fast food joints around at the time, and even if there were bars that served food, farmers couldn't afford to enter such establishments. According to my mother who grow up in Southern Italy in the 1930s most people brought along various picnic-style foods such as bread, cheese and dried sausages. However, most people when they had the money for it preferred to bring stuffed chicken. Stuffed chicken was "the" thing to bring on a pilgrimage. In fact, not only was stuffed chicken made when one went on a pilgrimage it was also prepared when one went on a trip -- either to Rome (to get one's papers in order) or to Naples (That's what my grandmother prepared when our family left). Basically, farmers never ate out, and so when they went out they brought their own food. In the 1950s there were no plastic boxes or any other kind of boxes, so all the food was wrapped up in linen towels. Actually, most households had linen towels whose sole purpose was to wrap food in. Generally, the woman of the house would have sewed them herself and that would have been part of her linen trousseau, but that's another story. In any case "chicken stuffed with bread and cheese" is very good whether it's fresh out of the oven or it's two days old and just out of the fridge. So it's no surprise it was a "must have" for those who were going on any kind of road trip.... My cousins tell me that their parents added chicken innards which they fried prior to putting it in the stuffing, but my mother never did this, so I myself do not add them. Also, I use milk to soften the bread and that in my opinion improves the taste of the stuffing (Takes away the sharp taste of the Parmesan cheese and egg combination). Obviously milk was not used to do this in Southern Italy. Prior to World War II bread softened with milk was eaten by toddlers, and that's about it. Nowadays Italians eat "stuffed chicken" prepared in countless of ways any old time, this dish is no longer associated with travel of any kind -- sacred or secular. I suppose this is a good thing... (better not to say any more). Photo: by the contributor. |
