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Poultry and Rabbit

Appears in
Italian Slow and Savory
Italian Slow and Savory

By Joyce Goldstein

Published 2004

  • About
Today, chicken is widely eaten in Italy, but this was not always the case. In the past, chickens were raised for their eggs and appeared only rarely on the dinner table. Birds were slaughtered when they had grown old, or when a special chicken dish was needed to celebrate a holiday or other important occasion.

In making my selection of poultry recipes for this chapter, I looked primarily to poached or roasted whole chickens, which generally take longer to cook than birds that have been cut up. Most Italian chicken recipes specifically call for a pollo ruspante, that is, a bird that has spent time scratching around in an open space. In other words, Italians prefer free-range chickens, rather than the relatively tasteless, mass-produced, cage-confined birds common in many places.

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