Snapshots from Italy: Grano Stompato, My New Favorite Food
Editor’s note: Serious Eats correspondent Carey Jones, eating her way around Italy, will be reporting back from Rome, Bologna, Tuscany, and Puglia.
Two dizzying weeks of giddy gluttony in Italy, eating my way from Bologna to Lecce, acquainted me with a number of veggies, pastas, and sea creatures I’d neither seen nor tasted before. But one of the best single bites of the entire journey came in the town of Manduria, when I took my first mouthful of grano stompato—a centuries-old peasant meal that reminded me just how simple and sublime the right ingredients can be.
The name of this dish, also called cranu stumpatu, translates to “stomped grain”—and it’s nearly as simple as it sounds. Whole grains of durum wheat are husked, soaked for twelve hours, and then pearled with a heavy mortar; that wheat is then soaked again and boiled, uncovered, for several hours. (“Durum” derives from a Latin word meaning “hard,” and true to its name, this firm and stubborn grain demands an awful lot of softening.)
Eventually, the wheat mellows into a state not too different from farro (made from the closely related emmer wheat) but with larger grains and a bit more of a bite. Some preparations continue with tomato sauce and perhaps a grating of sheep’s milk Pecorino. But Puglia is a historically impoverished region, and the poor and hardy farmers were more likely to stop with just the grain, perhaps adding drizzle of the ubiquitous native olive oil.
That’s essentially how we encountered the grano stompato, at a lunch at the Museo della Civiltà del Vino Primitivo in Manduria. The chef had sautéed a bit of onion in ample olive oil before tossing in the cooked wheat. And that was all this dish needed. The oil was fruity and sharp, enormously fragrant. The finely diced onion was expertly softened, with a hint of caramelized sweetness. And the grain itself was earthy and appealing, more satisfying than rice or farro—a texture almost like steel-cut oatmeal writ large.
I don’t like applying the word “revelatory” to food; I think it’s a somewhat florid term. A chocolate cake may be delicious, but it rarely sparks a revelation. This meal did. I knew that certain revered ingredients, like a perfectly ripe heirloom tomato or an ocean-fresh lobster, were better left unadulterated. But I never realized that simple kernels of grain could be treated the same way.
I finished every bite, though I knew several more courses lay ahead. And as I pierced the last grains with my fork, I couldn’t imagine a more perfect meal. Were I an eighteenth-century Puglian farmer, I’m sure, grano stompato would grow tiresome. But at that moment, I felt as if I could live on it alone.
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4 Comments:
I have to remember to come back and check this for the answer - but can one use hulled wheat berries to make this dish? I just made a couple of grain pies for Easter and now that I know where to get wheat berries, the sky's the limit.
therealchiffonade at 12:40PM on 04/18/09
If I were to be a poor 18th C. farmer, then I would want to be in Italy.
This, some cheese on occasion, and a steady supply of red wine = perfection.
pookywookyster at 1:07PM on 04/18/09
Carey,
I am so pleased you are writing about one of the most ancient recipes of my region, Puglia! "Grano" is really one the fundamental ingredients of our Mediterranean cuisine. In my family we eat the Grano at least twice per week!
The traditional way of preparing the Grano was to cook it for many hours in a big clay pot placed in the fireplace...I still remember my Nonna (Grandmother) preparing it! Now almost nobody does it this way anymore!
I confirm the most authentic way we eat it is just with raw extra virgin olive oil (you need a good one!).
Then there are so many other ways which vary from town to town (and sometimes also from family to family in the same small town....we like variety!).
You can have it with fried durum wheat bread; or octopus; or mussels (this is excellent!).
I have a favorite recipe which I call the "Garden Grano Stampato" (which works very well in the summer).
To cook the grano, boil it in abundant water for about 2 hours. Drain the water and then cook it again in abundant and salted water for other 2 hours until it turns white (this is a different preparation than Carey's Grano Stampato with olive oil).
Cut 5 ripe cherry tomatoes, add 2 tbs of capers (the small ones!), 1 garlic clove (chopped), a pinch of salt, 3 tbs of extra virgin olive oil, half chily pepper, a pinch of oregano and lots of chopped wild rocket.
Add the grano only when it is very cold.
It's delicious!
stile mediterraneo at 4:24PM on 04/18/09
@stile mediterraneo: Thanks so much for sharing this. (The best information about any dish always comes from those who know it first-hand.) Your cold Grano salad sounds excellent, and I plan to try it!
@therealchiffonade: I'm not sure, but I think the effect would be somewhat different. The wheat used in Grano Stompato is a bit larger, a size and shape similar to arborio rice, whereas wheatberries are a good bit smaller. But virtually anything tastes great tossed in a top-quality olive oil... so if you try it, let us know!
Carey Jones at 4:13PM on 04/19/09