Zizziridd’

Ingredients Durum-wheat flour, water, and salt.

How Made The flour is sifted onto a wooden board and kneaded long and vigorously with water and salt, and the dough is left to rest. It is rolled out into a sheet about ⅜ inch (1 cm) thick, allowed to dry a bit, and then cut into flat noodles about ⅜ inch (1 cm) wide. The noodles are cut crosswise into ⅜-inch (1-cm) cubes. They are cooked in soup.

Also Known As Zziridd’.

How Served Typically in a bean soup.

Where Found Basilicata, typical of Acerenza.

Remarks The name is dialect for the Italian stuzzichini del gargarozzo, or “gullet ticklers.” The spread of legume- and vegetable-based soups was a sign of poverty, especially in Calabria. We learn from the Inchiesta Jacini, conducted in the 1880s across the entire new Kingdom of Italy, that Lucanian peasants seem to have eaten exclusively bread and vegetables, with an absolute absence of foods containing protein, a diet at the limit of survival. The Inquiry on Poverty conducted by the Italian Parliament in 1953 produced much the same results.