Category: History

Pan de Mej: taste of tradition and stories of brigands

The history of the Pan de Mej (or meino bread) starts in the south of Milan, outside Porta Lodovica and at the intersection of today’s via Corrado il Salico with via Verri.
During the Middle Ages, this area was a suburbs, and it was covered by a dense thicket interrupted by some rural village that was annexed to the City of Milan only in 1873.
According to the chronicles in the year 1342, on St. George eve, celebrated on April 23 rd, for the umpteenth time the inhabitants of the village were attacked by a handful of bandits. They were soldiers of fortune, criminals, unscrupulous men who had tormented the inhabitants of the area for years, looting their homes and using violence and abuse every day: they were led by the bloodthirsty brigand Vione Squilletti.
However on that St. George eve, the coup for the bad guys did not go well. The Lord of Milan, Duke Luchino Visconti, arrived just in time and, with the audacity of his spearmen, made out all the brigands, hitting their leader to death, Vione.
That night and the following day, April 23 rd, the inhabitants of the village celebrated the liberation from the torment that had long distressed their lives, offering to the soldiers of the duke the “pan de mej” and the “panera” (the cream of milk collected by outcrop).
In the following years, the day of San Giorgio was for a long time the date in which in the countryside around Milan contracts were signed between herdsmen and milkmen and a good omen was eaten the pan de Mej. On the site of the battle was placed a stone with the image of St. George and the dragon accompanied by the commemorative inscription “Here died Vione”.
This site is now incorporated into the city,  and became the district of Morivione and there, until a few decades ago, the old Milanese went to celebrate April 23 rd, eating the bread and drinking panera.
Beautiful rural tradition, which smells of good.
It ‘s time for us to eat the pan de mej, but ….. beware of the ghost of the brigand Vione !!!                                                                                                   

                                                                                                                                                          Mara

Patriotic spirit with intercultural taste

 In a few days April 25th we celebrate a significant page of Italian history: the liberation from Nazi-fascism in 1945 and symbolically the end of the war.

Even in Australia, thousands of miles away from us, the day is an important occurrence: that day they celebrate the first important military action of the Australian and New Zealand army during the First World War: the Anzac Day (ANZAC: Australian And New Zealand Army Corps).

The Australians are proud of this army corp, Anzac, who distinguished himself on April 25, 1915 in the Peninsula of Gallipoli in military action aimed at enabling the British allies to force the Dardanelles, occupy Constantinople and force the ‘Ottoman Empire (ally of Germany) to emerge from the conflict.

Although the operation did not succeed, the memory of this landing, the legend of the valiant 8,000 soldiers who lost heroically there lives, but also the dead soldiers of all the wars, became a national holiday.

What are they doing for Anzac day in Australia? Attending the many celebrations – many of which take place at dawn, landing time -, singing Australian and New Zealand national hymns, holding sporting events and games, drinking black coffee with a splash of rum and …. They eat Anzac cookies, army cookies.

Traditional cookies, more than the legendary ones, those eaten by troops in the peninsula of Gallipoli, they were packaged by mothers and wives and sold during parties at home to raise funds to be sent to their loved ones during the wars.
The ingredients of the original recipe – oatmeal, sugar, flour, butter with lemon caramel syrup – made food not only nutritious and full of energy but also easy to preserve for long periods of time.
They say that the soldiers softened the cookies to eat them more easily, made them a porridge, grated them and added hot water or soaked them in the jam, making a kind of cake.
So, the password for April 25th is: patriotic spirit and Australian cookies on a beautiful sunny open air day!

                                                                                                                                Mara

(Italiano) Giovedì 24 novembre, oltre a mangiare i  biscotti di Patrizia, partecipiamo a questa festa andando a ricercarne le origini …

Halloween, night of magic and superstition

Halloween’s origins lie in ancient pre-Christian Celtic Festival of Samhain, a rite of passage that the October 31 marked the end of the harvest season and the summer and the beginning of the season of the dark winter cold. 

For Celts, the new year began in fact on 1 November: it was the time when crops were already safety stored, the shepherds and their flocks brought downstream, before going into houses to protecy from the cold, the community gathered to thank the Gods and exorcise the perils of winter.

At  Samhain ( the word come from Gaelic samhuinn and means“summer’s end) ithe Celts asked the spirits of dead people to join them in the celebrations: they light sacred fires, they masked with animal skins in order to scare the spirits themselves. The magical meeting between the world of the living and the dead, that went on in that night, drew the idea of nature who apparently died during the winter months, preparing however to new life.

Then with the arrival of the Christians in the Celt’s lands, the feast of all Saints which was initially celebrated on 13 May, was postponed to November 1 by Pope Gregorio Magno and the feast of Samhain became All-hallows-even then Hallow Eve, and Hallowe’en and finally Halloween. 

There are two major traditions of Halloween: trick or treat and pumpkin: both were brought into the United States by Irish immigrants in the 800.

Trick or treat comes from the habit of Christians to knock on the doors of houses asking for the ‘ bread of the soul ” The soul cake, a dessert made of raisins in Exchange for prayers for the deceased donors.

Pumpkins replaced Irish turnips in America that were dug and had a nightlight inside.

Pumpkin is linked to the legend of Jack O’Lantern, a drunken guy who made a bet with Satan: one year of his life if the devil managed to get up and down from a tree.

The slick Jack prevented Satan to get off carving a crucifix on the trunk, but when he finally died, he was not accepted neither in Heaven nor in hell, had to wander in a kind of dark limbo only with a pumpkin with a candle …

Well, it’s his fault!

If you have the chance to take a walk in Umbria, you will be breathless by the beauty of this region: quiet streets climbing to the medieval villages, churches that contain priceless works of art, green forests on rolling hills …

These are the places where San Francesco lived, a Saint loved for his humility and his message of peace, in which he carried out his path of spiritual growth. Saint Francis was inspired from the serene beauty of nature when he wrote his praise to God, the Canticle of the Creatures, a wonderful hymn to life, and one of the first books of poetry of the origins of Italian literature:

“…Laudato si’, mi’ Signore, per sor’aqua,
la quale è multo utile et humile et pretiosa et casta(…)
Laudato si’, mi’ Signore, per sora nostra matre terra,
la quale ne sustenta et governa,
et produce diversi fructi con coloriti flori et herba(…)”

But getting back to the biscuits of San Francesco, mostaccioli, whose genuine and simple ingredients take us to nature.

Which is the bond between a friar, who makes a vow of poverty, with some cookies that after all represent a ‘plus’ in food, a sin? The history of mostaccioli is linked to a beautiful figure of a woman of the time: Jacoba de ‘Settesoli, a Roman noblewoman, who became a young widow and knew the saint. She became his follower and guided him through the streets of Rome during sermons. Jacoba worked hard and obtained the S. Cosimato Benedictine Abbey to become a shelter for the Franciscan friars, and San Biagio hospital, in Trastevere. Thanks to a Papal Bull in 1229, it became the first headquarters of the Order of the Friars Minor in the Holy City.

Based on the noblewoman’s strong character, Francis affectionately referred to her as ‘Friar Jacoba’ as she used to prepare the special biscuits, mostaccioli “boni and profumosi (yummy and scented).

Even the last time they met, when Jacopa went to Assisi to greet him on his deathbed, along with candles and dressed for burial, it is said that she had brought with her also the cookies that San Franceso loved: the mostaccioli.