What were considered the “foods of the poor”?

The frugal cuisine that has its origins in peasant customs is made up of what are called foods of the poor, but which over time have become real traditional recipes of Italian culinary art.

Poor dishes, cooked with simple methods and with genuine ingredients, easily available and cheap, in fact, express one of the greatest Italian talents: that of knowing how to make virtue of necessity and virtue an excellence, even in the kitchen!

The main ingredients for poor Italian cuisine

Poor cuisine is an ever-evolving concept because, over time, even the most available ingredients change, but undoubtedly some elements remain constant.

Legumes, potatoes and polenta, to give substance, onion and aromatic herbs for flavor: by combining these simple foods, extraordinary and tasty dishes have always been created in the poorest homes.

Not to mention the chestnuts that for centuries have been a fundamental resource from the Alps to the Apennines: consumed roasted, boiled or dried and ground to obtain a flour suitable for both sweet and savory dishes.

Chestnut polenta: the poor but good recipe that won over the chefs

In addition to the choice of ingredients, the simplicity of the preparation is another characteristic of the dishes of the poor, and there is no recipe that represents it better than chestnut polenta.

In the areas where the cultivation of corn was scarce, in fact, chestnuts were much more abundant and certainly cheaper. It was, in fact, enough to wait for autumn to go and collect them in the woods and to keep them for a long time there was no easier procedure than drying them.

This is how chestnut flour was born to make polenta, a poor food par excellence, which also has much shorter cooking times than that of corn.

Today it is still widespread and, thanks to the well-being achieved, it is served as an accompaniment to savory meats and cheeses as an appetizer, or with ricotta and honey as a dessert.

The marron glacé ice cream is the delight of RivaReno chestnuts

Chestnuts are so good and versatile that with a simple candying they turn into a delight for superfine palates.

It’s true, the process to prepare candied chestnuts is quite long and requires patience and expertise … that’s why we decided to bring all the flavor of chestnuts to your table with our Marron Glacé ice cream.

To make it, we choose the tastiest and add the Agrimontana chestnut cream to our recipe, really delicious!

In our laboratories, the season of marron glacé ice cream has just begun: we are waiting for you to taste it together with the other autumn flavors, with dried fruit or even with coffee!