From the pajata to the lampredotto, from the mule’s balls to the meuza and Sardinian casu marzo. Let's be honest, the roots of Italian cuisine’s splendor is more often its ingenuity. Or rather, hunger. To beat this hunger our ancestors, with what little they had, were able to invent things. They obtained authentic specialties even from waste and less virtuous products, looked on with horror by the richest dining rooms. So here are the top 10 weirdest foods around the Bel Paese. Just to be clear, despite appearances, all are absolutely delicious and worth a try!
10 - Lampredotto (Tuscany)
In tenth place there is the Florentine lampredotto, produced with one of the four stomachs from bovine meat, the abomasum. It goes through a lengthy cooking process with tomato, onion, parsley, and celery, but there is also the version with only a green sauce and the one stewed with chard. A dish of very poor origin, in Florence it’s upscale street food and usually eaten in a sandwich, the semelle, salted unlike other types of Tuscan bread. The tenth place position should therefore be extended to all variants of tripe, from Roman and Florentine to Milanese.
9 - Meusa (Sicily)
In ninth place another established street food creation, the meusa palermitana. The "pani câ meusa" is nothing more than a sandwich (sprinkled with sesame seeds) filled with veal spleen and lung, after being boiled and sautéed in oil. The sandwich variation called "maritatu" is combined with grated caciocavallo cheese or ricotta cheese, or "schettu" (bachelor) which is without any condiment. Or it can be enriched with just a splash of lemon juice.
8 - Coratella (Umbria)
Liver aside, today eating entrails appears more and more often as a "peculiarity", which should on the contrary be revived. Hence why to today's tastes it sounds very unfamiliar (basically one of the weirdest Italian foods) and in eighth place is the Umbrian coratella, a sort of stew based on lungs, heart, guts, liver, and lamb spleen.
7 - Pajata (Lazio)
In much deserved seventh place is the Roman pajata, recently returned on our tables after the ban imposed by the mad cow disease epidemic. It’s the small intestine of the milk calf or ox, which is often used with rigatoni pasta. A typical dish for Roman taverns, Alberto Sordi in the Marquis del Grillo presented it in front of a refined French guest: “Questa è merda. Merda de vitello: so’ budella!”, meaning this is crap, veal crap: so' guts!"
6 - Cibreo (Tuscany)
In sixth place is all of the cibreo, an ancient Florentine dish particularly loved by Caterina de'Medici. It’s a soup based on rooster or chicken creste (creste di gallo o pollo). In short, all kinds of the insides where also appear wattles (the "barbozza" of chicken) and especially the testicles of the rooster, also called beans or grains!
5 - Raw octopus (Puglia)
In fifth place we need to open a chapter for "Italian sushi", the story of Apulian raw fish. Unparalleled specialties, especially if consumed very fresh. Although, in some cases certain perplexities may arise. What about the Apulian raw octopus, beaten against a rock, washed by its "foam" and then curled to make its tentacles more tender? Once tasted however, all bewilderment vanishes, so people pledge.
4 - Raw snails (Puglia and Sicily)
In fourth place, among all these eccentricities once eaten by "simple people", from snails to frogs, the raw Sicilian and Apulian snails stand out, sometimes cooked after briefly roasting them. They were once considered a remedy for gastritis.
3 - Pork blood cake (Tuscany)
On the podium, in third place sits the pork blood cake. It is a Tuscan specialty prepared, in addition to pork blood, with milk, Parmesan cheese, breadcrumbs, butter, eggs and diced bacon. It is the avant-garde of specialties prepared with pig's blood such as the famous black puddings and sausages prepared throughout Italy with different recipes depending on the region. Pork blood is combined with potatoes in Lombardy, pine nuts in Liguria and wild fennel in Tuscany. In Campania it’s even added to cocoa, rice, pine nuts, orange peel and raisins to become a dessert. In Calabria ricotta cheese is added and in Puglia and Sicily the intestine.
2 - Casu frazigu (Sardinia)
In second place, the Sardinian casu frazigu (or casu martzu): cheese with worms. It’s a sheep or goat cheese invaded by the maggots of mosca casearia (the dairy fly), which experts vow gives it that unmistakable flavor. It’s a tough opinion to swallow in the European Union, since for Euro bureaucrat a cheese with worms is simply forbidden, and Italian institutions had to go to a great deal of trouble to get a waiver from Brussels. There are actually similar cheeses all over Italy: marcetto in Abruzzo, salterello in Friuli, ribiòla cui bèg in Lombardia, furmai nis in Emilia-Romagna, frmag punt in Puglia and casu du quagghiu in Calabria. All united by the presence of worms. Make no mistake about it, even gorgonzola to some bureaucrats sounds strange. Incidentally in the Soviet Union, in 1936, the young Italian communist Andrea Bertazzoni was arrested for trying to "poison the people" with moldy cheese…
1 – Mule’s balls (Umbria, Marche, Lazio, Abruzzo)
In first place, well, it’s no other than mule's balls, cold cuts of unequivocal appearance produced in the Apennine region between Norcia and L'Aquila, spanning four regions: Umbria, Marche, Lazio and Abruzzo. But just to be clear, the strangeness is only in the name: it’s actually a salami with two pieces of lard inside, and the animal’s poor family jewels have nothing to do with it. We Italians, after all, are made like this: oddness is only in appearance, if you dig and dig then you find the goodness. Seasoned with a little travesty.