Zengarielle

Ingredients Dark grains, water, and often also emmer.

How Made Spaghetti-like dark-colored factory-made pasta produced by artisanal makers in Molise. They are boiled in abundant salted water.

Also Known As No alternative names.

How Served Generally as pastasciutta.

Where Found Molise.

Remarks Molise has always been the granary of Naples. The spelt grown by the ancient Romans in the Larinum—the ancient name of the land occupied by present-day Molise—is solidly attested there also in the Middle Ages and after. Toward the end of the 1700s, wheat replaced the rustic and resistant spelt. Soft-wheat varieties took hold, especially in the areas surrounding the towns of Campobasso, Casacalenda, Montagnano, and San Giovanni, while durum wheat was grown around Isernia and the district of Larino.