Piadina and Tigelle are the representative snacks of two very distinct culinary and geographical areas within the same region, Emilia-Romagna, which is one of the wealthiest and most developed regions in Europe. Bologna, its capital, boasts one of Italy’s highest quality of life and provides its citizens with the most advanced social services. The region is a cultural and tourist magnet: it’s the home of the University of Bologna (the oldest university in the world and where the late, great scholar, Umberto Eco, was professor) plus Romanesque and Renaissance art cities such as Modena, Parma and Ferrara, not to mention a prolific automotive industry – think Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati and Ducati – just to mention a few. But in our book, however, Emilia-Romagna is first and foremost a food destination.
In popular coastal resorts such as Cervia, Cesenatico, Rimini and Riccione, piadina romagnola is the snack of choice. Piadina romagnola is typical of the Apennine areas of Forlì, Cesena, Rimini and Ravenna in the Romagna part of the region. This traditional flat bread has become over the centuries a dish known first as a poor man’s meal to a now universally-established snack food.
Tigelle on the other hand belong to the culinary tradition of Emilia. Prepared with the same basic water, yeast, lard and flour dough as piadine, the 3″ flat, round tigelle disks were once baked on terracotta molds lined with chestnut leaves in a wood-burning oven. Now they are made with a tigelliera: a waffle-type iron used over the stove. What makes these two flat breads so unique? The fillings!
To find out more about piadine and tigelle, a recipe – and mostly what the classic fillings for each are – Continue Reading ➔
