Farinata
Encyclopedia
Farinata, socca, or cecina is a sort of thin, unleavened pancake
or crêpe
of chickpea flour originating in Genoa
and later a typical food of the Ligurian Sea
coast, from Nice to Pisa
.
fainâ. In Nice and the Côte d'Azur, it is called "socca", and in Tuscany, "cecina" 'made of chickpeas'. In Argentina and Uruguay Fainá or Faina.
It is made by stirring chickpea flour into a mixture of water
and olive oil
to form a loose batter
, and baking it in the open oven. A tin-plated copper baking-pan is used. Farinata may be seasoned with fresh rosemary
, pepper
and sea salt
. Traditionally farinata is cut into irregularly shaped triangular slices, and enjoyed (with no toppings) on small plates with optional black pepper. Elsewhere in Italy (traditionally in Tuscany, where it is called cecina (from the Italian word for chickpea, ceci), it is served stuffed into small focaccia
(mainly in Pisa
) or between two slices of bread, as it is traditional in Livorno
. It is sold in pizzerias and bakeries.
, south of Liguria, especially in the province of Pisa
, Livorno
, Lucca
, Massa Carrara cecina or, in Livorno
, Torta (di ceci) (Chickpea pie) is baked (with no rosemary used for toppings).
In Sassari
, Sardinia
, due to the Genoese origin of the city and language
, la fainé genovese (genoese fainé), is a "historical" dish.
In Savona
province (near Genoa), a version of farinata called farinata bianca (white farinata) is used. It is made with wheat flour instead of chickpeas flour.
The name Panissa or Paniscia in Genoese
indicates a solidified polenta-like paste, made with the same ingredients as farinata, which can then be cut into strips to be fried, assuming the name panissette.
In Genoa, variants of the farinata include sometimes onions or artichokes, but the most famous derivative recipe is the fainâ co i gianchetti (farinata with whitebait), at times hard to find due to fishing regulations, but traditionally seen as the quintessential fainâ.
Socca is a specialty of southeastern French cuisine, particularly in and around the city of Nice
. Its primary ingredients are chickpea
flour and olive oil
. After being formed into a flat cake and baked in an oven, often on a cast iron
pan more than a meter in diameter, the socca is seasoned generously with black pepper
and eaten while hot with the fingers.
, karantita is a similar dish which is very popular. It is served hot and dressed with cumin
and harissa
.
In Argentina
and Uruguay
(where many thousands of Ligurian people emigrated between the 19th and the 20th centuries) farinata is known as fainá, similar to the original Genoese name fainâ. It is often eaten on top of pizza (a caballo).
In Argentina Farinata is also eaten with dulce de leche
or fruit preserves.
In Uruguay, olive oil is very seldom or never used to make fainá. It is very expensive and not used much in Uruguayan cooking, so more common types of oil such as sunflower, canola, corn, and soybean oils are used. For people accustomed to olive oil fainá, the taste can be quite different.
In Gibraltar
, where a significant portion of its population is of Genoese origin
, it is known as calentita when it is baked or panissa when it is fried. They are typically eaten plain, without any toppings. These are considered to be Gibraltar's national dish
es.
In India, the chila or chilla, is a similar dish made by cooking chickpea flour and water on a skillet. Vegetables such as onions, green chillies, cabbage and herbs such as coriander are also added in certain versions of the preparation.
Pancake
A pancake is a thin, flat, round cake prepared from a batter, and cooked on a hot griddle or frying pan. Most pancakes are quick breads; some use a yeast-raised or fermented batter. Most pancakes are cooked one side on a griddle and flipped partway through to cook the other side...
or crêpe
Crêpe
A crêpe or crepe , is a type of very thin pancake, usually made from wheat flour or buckwheat flour . The word is of French origin, deriving from the Latin crispa, meaning "curled". While crêpes originate from Brittany, a region in the northwest of France, their consumption is widespread in France...
of chickpea flour originating in Genoa
Genoa
Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....
and later a typical food of the Ligurian Sea
Ligurian Sea
The Ligurian Sea is an arm of the Mediterranean Sea, between the Italian Riviera and the island of Corsica. The sea is probably named after the ancient Ligures people.-Geography:...
coast, from Nice to Pisa
Pisa
Pisa is a city in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the right bank of the mouth of the River Arno on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa...
.
Names
In standard Italian, the dish is called "farinata" 'made of flour', in Genoese dialectGenoese dialect
Genoese is a dialect of the Ligurian language, the one spoken in Genoa .Ligurian is listed by Ethnologue as a language in its own right, of the Romance branch, and not to be confused with the ancient Ligurian language...
fainâ. In Nice and the Côte d'Azur, it is called "socca", and in Tuscany, "cecina" 'made of chickpeas'. In Argentina and Uruguay Fainá or Faina.
Cooking method
Water
Water is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. A water molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state . Water also exists in a...
and olive oil
Olive oil
Olive oil is an oil obtained from the olive , a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin. It is commonly used in cooking, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and soaps and as a fuel for traditional oil lamps...
to form a loose batter
Batter (cooking)
Batter is a semi-liquid mixture of one or more flours combined with liquids such as water, milk or eggs used to prepare various foods. Often a leavening agent such as baking powder is included to aerate and fluff up the batter as it cooks, or the mixture may be naturally fermented for this purpose...
, and baking it in the open oven. A tin-plated copper baking-pan is used. Farinata may be seasoned with fresh rosemary
Rosemary
Rosemary, , is a woody, perennial herb with fragrant, evergreen, needle-like leaves and white, pink, purple or blue flowers, native to the Mediterranean region. It is a member of the mint family Lamiaceae, which includes many other herbs, and is one of two species in the genus Rosmarinus...
, pepper
Black pepper
Black pepper is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit, which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The fruit, known as a peppercorn when dried, is approximately in diameter, dark red when fully mature, and, like all drupes, contains a single seed...
and sea salt
Sea salt
Sea salt, salt obtained by the evaporation of seawater, is used in cooking and cosmetics. It is historically called bay salt or solar salt...
. Traditionally farinata is cut into irregularly shaped triangular slices, and enjoyed (with no toppings) on small plates with optional black pepper. Elsewhere in Italy (traditionally in Tuscany, where it is called cecina (from the Italian word for chickpea, ceci), it is served stuffed into small focaccia
Focaccia
Focaccia is a flat oven-baked Italian bread, which may be topped with herbs or other ingredients. It is related to pizza, but not considered to be the same....
(mainly in Pisa
Pisa
Pisa is a city in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the right bank of the mouth of the River Arno on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa...
) or between two slices of bread, as it is traditional in Livorno
Livorno
Livorno , traditionally Leghorn , is a port city on the Tyrrhenian Sea on the western edge of Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Livorno, having a population of approximately 160,000 residents in 2009.- History :...
. It is sold in pizzerias and bakeries.
Italian variations
On the Tuscan coastTuscany
Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....
, south of Liguria, especially in the province of Pisa
Pisa
Pisa is a city in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the right bank of the mouth of the River Arno on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa...
, Livorno
Livorno
Livorno , traditionally Leghorn , is a port city on the Tyrrhenian Sea on the western edge of Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Livorno, having a population of approximately 160,000 residents in 2009.- History :...
, Lucca
Lucca
Lucca is a city and comune in Tuscany, central Italy, situated on the river Serchio in a fertile plainnear the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Lucca...
, Massa Carrara cecina or, in Livorno
Livorno
Livorno , traditionally Leghorn , is a port city on the Tyrrhenian Sea on the western edge of Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Livorno, having a population of approximately 160,000 residents in 2009.- History :...
, Torta (di ceci) (Chickpea pie) is baked (with no rosemary used for toppings).
In Sassari
Sassari
Sassari is an Italian city. It is the second-largest city of Sardinia in terms of population with about 130,000 inhabitants, or about 300,000 including the greater metropolitan area...
, Sardinia
Sardinia
Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . It is an autonomous region of Italy, and the nearest land masses are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Tunisia and the Spanish Balearic Islands.The name Sardinia is from the pre-Roman noun *sard[],...
, due to the Genoese origin of the city and language
Sassarese
Sassarese is an Italo-Dalmatian language and transitional between Corsican and Sardinian. It is regarded as a Corsican–Sardinian language because of Sassari's historic ties with Tuscany and Corsica...
, la fainé genovese (genoese fainé), is a "historical" dish.
In Savona
Savona
Savona is a seaport and comune in the northern Italian region of Liguria, capital of the Province of Savona, in the Riviera di Ponente on the Mediterranean Sea....
province (near Genoa), a version of farinata called farinata bianca (white farinata) is used. It is made with wheat flour instead of chickpeas flour.
The name Panissa or Paniscia in Genoese
Genoese dialect
Genoese is a dialect of the Ligurian language, the one spoken in Genoa .Ligurian is listed by Ethnologue as a language in its own right, of the Romance branch, and not to be confused with the ancient Ligurian language...
indicates a solidified polenta-like paste, made with the same ingredients as farinata, which can then be cut into strips to be fried, assuming the name panissette.
In Genoa, variants of the farinata include sometimes onions or artichokes, but the most famous derivative recipe is the fainâ co i gianchetti (farinata with whitebait), at times hard to find due to fishing regulations, but traditionally seen as the quintessential fainâ.
France
Nice
Nice is the fifth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, with a population of 348,721 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of more than 955,000 on an area of...
. Its primary ingredients are chickpea
Chickpea
The chickpea is a legume of the family Fabaceae, subfamily Faboideae...
flour and olive oil
Olive oil
Olive oil is an oil obtained from the olive , a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin. It is commonly used in cooking, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and soaps and as a fuel for traditional oil lamps...
. After being formed into a flat cake and baked in an oven, often on a cast iron
Cast iron
Cast iron is derived from pig iron, and while it usually refers to gray iron, it also identifies a large group of ferrous alloys which solidify with a eutectic. The color of a fractured surface can be used to identify an alloy. White cast iron is named after its white surface when fractured, due...
pan more than a meter in diameter, the socca is seasoned generously with black pepper
Black pepper
Black pepper is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit, which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The fruit, known as a peppercorn when dried, is approximately in diameter, dark red when fully mature, and, like all drupes, contains a single seed...
and eaten while hot with the fingers.
Beyond the Ligurian Sea
In AlgeriaAlgeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
, karantita is a similar dish which is very popular. It is served hot and dressed with cumin
Cumin
Cumin is a flowering plant in the family Apiaceae, native from the east Mediterranean to India. Its seeds are used in the cuisines of many different cultures, in both whole and ground form.-Etymology:...
and harissa
Harissa
Harissa is a Tunisian hot chili sauce commonly eaten in North Africa whose main ingredients are piri piri , serrano peppers and other hot chili peppers and spices such as garlic paste, coriander, red chili powder, caraway as well as some vegetable or olive oil...
.
In Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
and Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
(where many thousands of Ligurian people emigrated between the 19th and the 20th centuries) farinata is known as fainá, similar to the original Genoese name fainâ. It is often eaten on top of pizza (a caballo).
In Argentina Farinata is also eaten with dulce de leche
Dulce de leche
Dulce de leche is a thick,creamy, caramel-like milk-based sauce or spread.Literally translated, dulce de leche means "sweet from milk". It is prepared by slowly heating sweetened milk to create a product that derives its taste from caramelised sugar. It is a popular sweet in Latin America, where...
or fruit preserves.
In Uruguay, olive oil is very seldom or never used to make fainá. It is very expensive and not used much in Uruguayan cooking, so more common types of oil such as sunflower, canola, corn, and soybean oils are used. For people accustomed to olive oil fainá, the taste can be quite different.
In Gibraltar
Gibraltar
Gibraltar is a British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranean. A peninsula with an area of , it has a northern border with Andalusia, Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the major landmark of the region...
, where a significant portion of its population is of Genoese origin
History of the Genoese in Gibraltar
A Genoese community has existed in Gibraltar since the 16th century and later became an important part of the population.-History:There is much evidence of a community of emigrants from Genoa, who moved to Gibraltar in the 16th century and that were more than a third of the Gibraltar population in...
, it is known as calentita when it is baked or panissa when it is fried. They are typically eaten plain, without any toppings. These are considered to be Gibraltar's national dish
National dish
A national dish is a dish, food or a drink that is considered to represent a particular country, nation or region.A dish can become a national dish for a variety of reasons. It can be the national dish because it is a staple daily food for the majority of the population. It can also be the national...
es.
In India, the chila or chilla, is a similar dish made by cooking chickpea flour and water on a skillet. Vegetables such as onions, green chillies, cabbage and herbs such as coriander are also added in certain versions of the preparation.