Pastiera

Grains of cooked wheat remain in soft ricotta, and the filling peeks out between diagonal strips of pastry. Pastiera, the Easter sweet of Naples, layers the fragrance of citrus and orange blossom over wheat, milk and eggs. The wheat is cooked and the cheese prepared, each is cooled separately before they are combined, and after baking the pastiera is again cooled thoroughly. Preparing a slice for the festive day involves several steps that take time.

Cooking the Wheat in Milk and Cooling It Separately from the Ricotta

The wheat is used as whole grains cooked until soft. In homes and workshops today, precooked wheat is commonly used, and it is cooked further with milk, citrus peel, and sometimes butter or lard. Once the milk has blended into the wheat and the mixture has thickened, it is spread out to cool.

Separately, the ricotta is pressed through a sieve and mixed with sugar until smooth. The cold wheat, eggs and chopped candied fruit are then combined with it. If the grains are left whole, there is the sensation of chewing on grain; if some of them are broken down finely, the finish is close to a cream while still containing grains.

The ricotta may be made from sheep’s, cow’s or buffalo milk, and some recipes use only one type while others combine them. The type of milk and the moisture content create differences in the richness and mouthfeel of the filling. Some methods also add custard, making the combination of wheat and cheese even softer and smoother.

Orange Blossom Water and the Fragrance of Citrus Peel and Candied Fruit

Orange blossom water is an ingredient that adds the fragrance of orange blossoms. Unlike fruit juice used to increase acidity, it adds a floral fragrance to the milk and grain. Lemon or orange zest, candied citron or orange, vanilla and sometimes cinnamon are added as well.

Each workshop also has its own way of adding fragrance. Some put citrus peel and vanilla in when cooking the wheat in milk and remove them before cooling; others grate the zest and mix it into the ricotta. The fragrance is added by using blossom water, infusing citrus peel, or mixing in grated zest or candied fruit.

Baked in a Ruoto and Delivered in Its Pan

The crust is pasta frolla, which combines flour, butter or lard, sugar and eggs. After chilling, it is rolled out thinly and laid into a round pan called a ruoto. The filling is poured in, and the remaining dough is cut into strips and laid diagonally across the top. The width and number of the lattice strips also vary by household and artisan.

During baking, the crust is browned and the egg-containing filling sets. Fresh from the oven, the filling is still soft; once it has cooled thoroughly, it is less likely to lose its shape when cut. For example, the recipe (the proportions of ingredients and the method of making) in Il Cucchiaio d’Argento cools it for 12 hours after baking. Some methods prepare the wheat and ricotta separately in advance, and the custom of baking it on Holy Thursday or Good Friday ahead of Easter Sunday is also tied to this waiting time.

To protect the soft filling and fragile crust, the pastiera is sometimes transported, sold and served still in the ruoto in which it was baked. The pan is both a baking tool and the vessel that brings the sweet to the table.

The Origin of the Name, Sweets Made with Rice or Pasta, and Savory Pastiera

Treccani treats pastiera as a word derived from pasta. Reflecting this broad term for flour-based foods and doughs, there are still versions today that use rice or pasta instead of wheat grains.

Campania’s pastiera di riso is made by cooking rice in water and milk, cooling it, combining it with ricotta, eggs, blossom water and other ingredients, and filling it into frolla. It is a sweet handed down around Salerno and in Cilento. Around Torre del Greco and Torre Annunziata, there is a sweet version that combines thin pasta with eggs, sugar, candied fruit and citrus. Savory versions called rustica contain cured meats such as salami along with cheese, and dishes in which grains are bound with egg and baked have also been handed down in various forms.

Legends of a Mermaid, Nuns and a Queen

In Campanian tradition, the mermaid Parthenope appears in the Bay of Naples in spring, and people give her seven ingredients in thanks for her singing. Flour is said to represent the richness of the land, ricotta the gift of shepherds, eggs the rebirth of life, wheat cooked in milk the bond between animals and plants, blossom water the fragrance of the land, spices distant countries, and sugar the sweetness of her song. When the mermaid offered them to the gods, they are said to have become the sweet.

There is also a story that at the convent of San Gregorio Armeno, the nuns combined orange blossoms from the garden, eggs, wheat and ricotta as symbols of the Resurrection. Both are legends that link the sweet’s ingredients to spring and the rebirth of life.

In another story presented by the Naples cultural heritage authority, Queen Maria Theresa, who rarely smiled, smiled after a single slice, and her husband Ferdinand II teased her by asking whether he would have to wait for Easter again to see her next smile. This legend uses a royal couple to tell of the sweet’s flavor and of a once-a-year celebration.

From Old Recipes with Pepper and Cheese to a Sweet Filling

The name of the sweet already appears in a 17th-century tale, and in the cookbook by Antonio Latini from the end of that century, wheat and sheep’s-milk ricotta are combined with Parmigiano, pepper, pistachios and other ingredients. It was a recipe with a stronger savory element than today’s, combined with sweetness.

In Ippolito Cavalcanti’s 19th-century recipe, wheat is cooked thoroughly in water and cooled, then combined with low-moisture ricotta, sugar, candied squash and citron, egg yolks and cinnamon; the mixture is placed in a crust made with eggs and a small amount of lard and covered with a lattice of strips. It contains no Parmigiano or pepper, and in covering a sweet filling with a pastry lattice, it is also close to the present-day method.

A Neapolitan account drawing on the 20th-century cookbook by Jeanne Caròla Francesconi presents two methods side by side: one using wheat, ricotta and eggs, and another in which a separately cooked cream is cooled and mixed in. In the latter, the ricotta and eggs are combined, and then the cooked and cooled wheat and the cream are added. Versions with cream are still made today, but who first added it is not known.

A Home Taste Carried Even to New Places

Besides being baked at home for Easter, pastiera is now also made year-round in Neapolitan pastry shops.

Families who have left Naples sometimes bring it to workplaces and neighbors in the places they have moved to. A friend described by “Piazza,” a writer living in southern Italy, moved from Naples to Milan and, each time they returned home, carried pastiera baked by their mother back to their workplace. Eventually the friend learned to make it, and began baking it at Easter at the request of neighbors. It is one maker’s example of carrying on a tradition: taking a home taste along and then baking and sharing it oneself.

Glossary