Notes Regarding Molisana Country Cuisine of the 1930s*

1) Olive oil or lard was used -- not all purpose vegetable oil.
2) Foods were fried not baked; meats were also fried or stewed, rarely grilled.
3) Home-made cheeses were made from sheep's milk (Not from cow's milk).
4) Both goat's milk and cow's milk were used in baking (Cow's milk did not have a monopoly!).
5) "Live" yeast was used in baking rather than "dried" yeast.
6) Wine grape marmalade was more popular in Molise than strawberry jam.
7) Table sugar or honey would be used to garnish sweets, not icing sugar.
8) Home cooks had to grind their own spices -- those they dried themselves, as well as those they bought in a shop, including salt.

*These notes are based on information gathered from relatives who grew up in Molise in the 1930s rather than from scholarly sources, so they're more akin to "observations" than to facts.

To duplicate Molisani country cuisine of the 1930s is next to impossible as few North American home cooks have the necessary equipment and/or have access to wood-burning ovens. However, one can assume at least seven things.... No. 1: Olive oil rather than all-purpose vegetable oil (or butter) was used for most recipes (The reason for this was simple -- olive trees were easy to grow in Molise, and most individuals had them on their property). Few, if any farmers, grew sunflowers or peanuts for the purpose of making cooking oil. Nor did the average subsistence farmer own a cow (So butter was out). Most farmers did own a pig, so obviously lard was available for use. No. 2: Most foods were fried, not baked. In the 1930s the majority of people living in the countryside did not own oven ranges, all they had was a fireplace, so frying made it more convenient than baking. Of course, cooks had access to the local communal wood-burning ovens, but one had to pay to use them, so the poor avoided their use. Now, quite a few meat dishes were "baked" at home, but that was a slow and tedious process. To bake at home one had to use hot embers -- not an easy task. Cooking with embers required a special cooking utensil called a "fornicella" that came with a lid called a "cop'. Many "fornicella" pans were round and made of copper; they came with over-sized lids that were made of iron. Unlike a frying pan or a cauldron, this "fornicella" with its over-sized "cop'" not only got heat from the burning embers from the bottom of the pan, but it also got heat from the top (Apparently, a fire had to burn for two hours prior to its embers being used for baking purposes). Basically, the "fornicella" with the "cop'" was totally surrounded in hot embers, giving out a slow and consistent heat. Like other foods that were baked in this cooking utensil the results were rather uneven. Sometimes the food came out quite well, other times it got burnt. Keeping the embers at the right temperature was not only difficult, but even if one managed to do it just right, the cooking process took a mighty long time. A lamb dish might take three to four hours to bake. I guess that's why the "Slow Food Movement" is called what it is, as cooking in the traditional method really is slow. In fact, baking food in the 1930s was so so slow, that most cooks did whatever they could to avoid it. For Christmas and Easter they might take the trouble, but for the rest of the year they fried their meats, vegetables and sweets, rather than spend hours by the fireplace tending to the embers. So frying was the "fast food" of the 1930s and in some ways, still is. And as for grilling meats, that too was rarely, if ever done. First of all, most households did not have the proper equipment to grill meats. They had grills to toast bread, but the grilling didn't work out so well (The bread often burnt), and as for grills to grill meat, they did not seem to be in existence -- well, not in the smaller towns, anyway. In the cities and in the larger centers like Santa Croce di Magliano, it appears households did have access to locally-crafted grills (In fact, my brother-in-law who grew up Santa Croce insisted that yes, grills were often used!). However, in smaller villages and towns, most subsistence farmers did not have the proper equipment to grill their food. Professionals and tradespeople may have had them, but subsistence farmers could not afford them. Even though there were plenty of blacksmiths about, it seems that in the 1930s, those who made their living from the land did not have the means to purchase good quality grills on which they could grill their meat. Whatever grills they did have, ended up burning the meat, rather than cooking it, so cooks avoided their use. Both my aunt, Zia Rosina, and my niece's mother-in-law who was also born in Molise, vouched that this information is accurate. According to my niece's mother-in-law many Italians who visited their relatives in Canada in the 1970s fell in love with the charcoal grills that were then being used by Italian-Canadians; they then bought the grills here and brought them back to Italy to cook on. Apparently, even up to the 1970s Italians living in the countryside didn't have the proper grills (and/or charcoals) to cook meat on. All they had was wood and that, of course, was in short supply (But that's a very long story, one which would take up a whole book....). So obviously meats prepared for major celebrations prior to World War II, had to be baked or stewed. To think that for over 50 years I ate meat stewed in tomato sauce and I had no idea the reason Southern Italians traditionally stew their meat in tomato sauce is because stewing meat was the only way a homemaker prior to World War II could actually cook the meat and keep sane. Every other method of cooking would have required so much time and effort that one could really go off the edge. Besides, prior to World War II meat was so scarce (Actually, meat wasn't scarce at all, it was simply too expensive for the average subsistence farmer) that the little meat one had simply had to retain its full flavor. Stewing the meat does this quite well. Also, because there is lots of liquid in the sauce to spare, one doesn't have to worry that one will end up burning the meat (an important consideration). So, for all those who feast on grilled lamb chops on Easter Sunday and assume they are eating a traditional Easter Molisana dish, take note. What one is really eating is a North American adaptation of an old recipe. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me that many youngsters who are presently living in Italy today have no idea that prior to World War II the dishes they now feast on were radically modified over the years. Obviously, in this day and age, native-born Italians have access to ultra-modern grills (Better than the stuff we import from China!). Nothing stays the same forever. Some things actually improve with time.... No. 3: Cheeses made from sheep's milk were used in most recipes rather than those cheeses made from cow's milk or goat's milk for that matter. Apparently, sheep's milk is creamier than cow's or goat's milk, so it not only produces more cheese than the other animals' milk, but it also produces a better-tasting one (This is what my Zia Rosina told me, and she should know, as her father was in the cheese-making business). In the 1930s most people either made their own cheese or bought it from a neighbor who did make it. So, in the 1930s most people would have garnished their pasta dishes with cheese made from sheep's milk. Pecorino cheese comes closest to what they would have used -- not Parmesan. (And to think that for the past 50 years I was cooking this and that with Parmesan as did my mother, assuming, I was making traditional Molisani recipes when what I was actually doing was making the North American version of Molisani recipes!). In the early 1960s many Italian-Canadians asked their relatives back in Italy to send them some locally-made wheels of cheese by mail, but by the late 1970s few bothered to do so. They found that Parmesan was as good -- if not better! -- than what they had grown up with. No. 4: Both cow's milk and goat's milk were used to make sweets. Prior to World War II the majority of Southern Italians living in the rural areas owned some farmland (Not much, but enough to live on). As cows were (and still are) more expensive to raise then goats, most farmers would have owned a goat rather than a cow. Actually, most subsistence farmers would have owned no cow or goat. In the 1930s only well-to-do farmers owned goats and sheep, the poor (like my maternal grandparents, Nonna Seppe and Nonno Domenico) did not; they raised chickens and when they could afford it, a pig. In any case, those Molisani farmers who did own goats would have more likely than not used goat's milk to make their dolci, not cow's milk, but those (the poor) who owned no goats (or cows for that matter) would have opted for the cheapest possible milk, and that, of course, was cow's milk. In the 1930s goat's milk was more expensive (Still is) than cow's milk; back then goat's milk was perceived as being more nutritious and better tasting than cow's milk so cooks might actually have preferred to use it over cow's milk. However, as cow's milk was cheaper than goat's milk the poor had no option but to use it. If truth be told, many of the desserts from the Molise area don't use milk of any kind. The only liquids they use are olive oil and/or water. Most "traditional" cakes from the Molise area (and from other areas in the South) are dairy-free. And as for Southern-style fritters, they too, rarely if ever, use any milk. The reason for this is simple -- the average subsistence farmer did not own a milk-producing animal, so the cooks in the family did whatever they could to avoid using milk in their recipes. If one wants to know if a recipe is a North American adaptation of an original Southern Italian recipe one just has to check out how much milk or butter is in it. If there is a lot of milk or butter and uses all-purpose vegetable oil rather olive oil then one can be sure (well, almost sure) that it has been modified over the years.... So to make a long story, short (Or is the other way round?) the type of milk used to make recipes in the Molise countryside in the 1930s all depended on what type of animals a farmer owned. Now, quite a few farmers (though not all) owned sheep, but sheep's milk was considered to be too thick and creamy to be used for the making of sweets. Sheep's milk was, though, considered the ideal milk to turn into cheese, and that's what farmers did. As noted earlier (Now I am making a short story, long) in the 1930s cow's milk was actually cheaper than goat's milk but that was, of course, if one were to actually to go out buy the cow's milk. However, because the majority of the people living in the "rural" areas in the 1930s made their living from the land (professionals and tradespeople were in the minority) most cooks would have automatically opted to use ingredients that came from their own farms (rather than someone else's farm). So, because the majority of people in Molise living in the countryside in the 1930s were subsistence farmers, and because many of them owned goats (and not cows or sheep for that matter) whatever dishes (including sweets) they would have made would have included ingredients they would have had on hand. Obviously, for weddings and other big major celebrations farmers would also have used store-bought food items -- but that happened once in a blue moon. No. 5: Baking powder was available in the 1930s (My aunt says it was, but my mother, who lived in the same town at the same time as my aunt did, had no idea it was available as her parents were so poor that they rarely, if ever entered, a food shop), but as baking powder was more expensive than live yeast (which incidentally could be made at home with moldy bread), yeast was more in use than baking powder. No. 6: The most popular marmalade in Molise in the 1930s was (red) wine grape marmalade. Most households (including those who made their living as tradespeople or professionals) owned vineyards, so they had lots of grape to spare, and so used it to make marmalade. Also, (red) wine grape marmalade doesn't need much sugar, and as sugar was expensive back then, making wine grape marmalade was relatively cheap. However, the poorest of the poor (including my maternal grandmother) did not make wine grape marmalade as sugar was far too expensive for them. Also, the glass jars needed to store the jam in were expensive, so that would have been another reason why the poor would have avoided making any type of marmalade or jam. The well-to-do also made prune jam as well as sour cheery jam as both prune trees and sour cheery trees grew well in the region. No. 7) Apparently, in many rural areas in Molise, including Casacalenda, icing sugar was not available in the shops prior to World War II. So, most sweets were garnished with table sugar or honey. Honey was produced locally, but only the well-to-do could buy it. The poor (including my maternal grandmother) never ever bought a drop. In fact, because my maternal grandmother didn't use honey, my mother assumed honey was Not available in Casacalenda prior to World War II, but my aunt, Zia Rosina, did mention to me that yes, honey was available, and there was a local beekeeper in the vicinity.... No 8) Back in the 1930s most home cooks grew their own herbs and dried them. However, sugar and salt had to be bought. Back then the only salt that was available in the countryside was "coarse." Home cooks had to grind the salt at home. This was not an easy task as the "coarse" salt did not look like North-American style "coarse" salt but rather came in big lumps...... One more thing.... One should Not assume that the original Molisani recipes tasted better than the ones that Italian North Americans now make. In the 1930s most home cooks had to make do with very little. Back then even well-to-do households, for example, reused the olive oil they fried their food in, and that, of course, can affect the taste of food, and obviously not in a good way. Nonetheless, most individuals would agree that food prepared at home, especially when it is enjoyed in the company of those one loves, tastes a hundred times (Or is it a thousand times?) better than anything that is made in some factory in some far away country (Even if that country is la Bella Italia). In the 1930s families may not have had a variety foods to feast on, but they certainly ate what they had in the company of others. As they say, "some people are better than no people."..................... P.S. For more personal observations on Molisana cookery of the 1930s see the various recipes from Molise on this website, in particular: X Italian Pasta Dishes, "Pasta e Fagiole, Version I," X Italian Breads and Pizzas -- "Scanat', Version I," Taralli -- "Biscotti con Sale, Version I," Fritters -- "Scrippelle, Version I," "Caragnoli, Version I," and "Caragnoli, Version II," as well as Holiday Breads -- "Zita Easter Cakes."

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