Strozzapreti (flour dumplings) are a kind of pasta from Romagna, simple but very good, whose name is decidedly original. But why was such a tasty dish named ‘Strozza-preti’ (Priest-Chokers)?

According to the story, this name is due to the historical anticlericalism created in Romagna between the oppressed people and the Papal State, since the middle of the VIII century, when Romagna was ‘donated’ to the Pope.

This donation and what happened during the following centuries weren’t a blessing at all for the inhabitants of Romagna, who were oppressed for a long time by the papacy and rebelled against it on several occasions.

Romagna was under the papal rule until the arrival of Napoleon, who included it in the Cispadane Republic. The Napoleonic interlude lasted until 1815, when the Council of Vienna ‘threatened’ the inhabitants of Romagna to restore the old papal rule. This time the rebellion was massive and led to the revolts of the Risorgimento and to the next Garibaldi movement, annexing Romagna to the Kingdom of Italy.

Then, since the thirteenth century until the end of nineteenth century, the inhabitants of Romagna had all the time in the world and the reasons to invent Strozzapreti, in order to underline their opposition to the Papal State.

Once again women (the famous ‘azdore’, housewives in Romagna) played a leading role: they knew their job in the kitchen and turned their creativity into a symbol of rebellion against poverty and hardships of the everyday life caused by the papal rule.

Besides, according to legend, women from Romagna made Strozzapreti with the intention of offering them to the local priest, whereas husbands’ job was to wish the guest to choke to death while he was stuffing himself with this tasty pasta.

Whatever happened, down here you can find the famous recipe, at which you can have a try at home…in honour of this historical event!

Recipe

Serves 6

Ingredients
500 g white flour, lukewarm water and salt

Preparation
Put flour on a work surface and make a well in the centre, then add a pinch of salt and pour a sufficient quantity of water in the flour to get a rather stiff, but homogeneous dough.
Knead it for some minutes, then roll out the pastry to a thickness of about 2mm, using a rolling pin.
Cut it into strips 1,5 cm wide and take them one by one. Twist them among your palms, then break them by your fingers, so you can obtain a length of about 8-10cm.
Fill a pot with water and bring to the boil, add salt, pour strozzapreti and cook for about 4 minutes.
Dress with pork sausage sauce and Parmesan cheese or with meat sauce and enjoy your meal!

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 7th, 2006 at 10:15 am and is filed under italian cooking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.