Pitta 'mpigliata, Typical Christmas Specialty, 500 gr Dolciaria Alessandria

From the tale by Pietro Mancina If the chili pepper is the symbol of everyday Calabrian life, the Pitta 'mpigliata represents Christmas, the most beautiful and most important celebration of Christian humanity. It is no coincidence that it coincides with the winter solstice when the day begins to lengthen again and light triumphs over darkness; and if this dessert, which in its shape and flavor recalls the summer sun, dominates the tables and romantic desires of all Calabrian families, even those scattered around the world, wherever they are. Autumn, for the self-sufficient organization of peasant culture, was the season of annual supplies. The food shop was used only to remedy some emergency, and for the poor, who did not have the money to make a pantry. In San Giovanni in Fiore, in November, bread was supplied in sufficient quantity to last all winter, because with the snow it was difficult to collect the wood needed to heat the oven in the woods.

The customer kneaded the flour and packed the loaves in the baker's shop who, generally a woman, then baked them and checked their cooking. Payment was made at the rate of 2 loaves for each board of twelve loaves, one for the baker, the other for the owner of the oven, who was almost always the Baron, or the Church. But the most tender and joyful supply began in September. The necessary ingredients for the pitta, the flower of flour, honey, oil, muscat wine, walnuts, raisins were collected and put aside, also involving children in looking for and keeping these goods and renouncing to consume them immediately, doing violence to the natural childish gluttony with the promise of happiness of the long-awaited party. In the end, the pitta was enriched with a pathos that made it indispensable and irreplaceable for the Calabrian tradition. I, on the other hand, produce this dessert at Christmas and all year round, to enhance and highlight its symbolic meaning, to present it in exhibitions and fairs as a wish. of every good for all and as our distinctive and way of being.