Gluten catchphrase, a problem that afflicts the food consumption of many Italians, to the point that unjustifiably there is a tendency to eliminate it from the diet even when there is no overt diagnosis of celiac disease or gluten sensitivity. In the United States the choice of famous people such as Victoria Beckham, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kim Kardashian, Lady Gaga and tennis player Novak Djokovic to ban it from one's diet has influenced consumption towards a flourishing "gluten free" industry. I'm in Italy 206.561 people with celiac disease, officially diagnosed, but they are instead 6 million those who according to research by Nielsen consume gluten-free foods, thinking that this may have slimming effects or anyway beneficial and purifying. And that's how you feed a market worth 320 million euros. A consistent figure to the point that gluten-free bread, pasta and biscuits have also entered the Istat basket. Even if an analysis based on all the scientific literature available on the Journal of Pediatrics, From one pediatric gastroenterologist at Columbia University, Norelle Reilly, has refuting all false myths of gluten-free products highlighting how in reality the choice of these foods can represent a health risk.
To better understand what historical truths lie behind this protein complex contained in wheat, spelled and other varieties of cereals, it is worth retracing over time, documenting it, the path of diffusion of gluten in the Italian diet through bibliographic and artistic references in our possession.
First of all, gluten is the union of two different proteins (gliadin and glutenin) when they come into contact in the presence of water. The slow manipulation of the dough by man allows the two proteins to find an optimal position in space, favoring the production of initially stable bonds by the sulfur in the sulfur amino acids. In reality, gluten once formed presents a very complex arrangement in space, since the various protein subunits (type-x and type-y with high and low molecular weight) form a more or less robust network. The protein mesh is necessary because when the fermentation of the dough begins to produce small carbon dioxide bubbles, these exert a strong push to escape from the mass and, if the protein mesh is robust, the gas bubbles are retained inside the dough giving it softness. The protein mesh is also needed to hold water vapor bubbles. In fact, when cooking exceeds 100°C, the water in the mix passes from the liquid phase to the vapor phase, and the latter also exerts considerable pressure to escape from the mix. If the leakage is held back by the protein network, the final product will be more dehydrated.
Pieter Aertsen, 1560 – Pancake bakery – Oil on board (87×169.3cm).
Softness and freshness have characterized leavened products since the beginning of humanity. Gluten also allows a third advantage from a nutritional point of view, in fact the fermentation of starch transforms this nutrient into an easily volatile gas which in fact leads to nutritional depletion, but which in fact translates into a significant increase in digestibility. The first Roman polentas (“pultes”) had an extraordinary satiating power, but were probably not very tasty. Also the first biscuits were hard to chew to the point of having to moisten them in milk […]”Dry three biscuits of dough, break them and throw them in the milk”[…],[…]”Tres orbiculos tractae siccas et confringis et partibus in lac summittis”[…] (Apicius Re coq. V, I, 3 ). The Romans did not immediately know spelled as a food, since in the rural populations of Italy millet and panicum were consumed, two completely gluten-free minor cereals. Ovid himself tells us of the offering of millet made to the goddess Paleche […]”libaque de milio milii fiscella sequatur. Rustica praecipue est hoc dea laeta cibo”[…], […]” follows a basket of millet and a millet focaccia, the rustic goddess is particularly pleased with this food”[…] (Fasti IV,740). In Sannio Strabo even documents three panic harvests [...]"it is said that in some plains, twice the spelled, three times the panic"[...], [...]"ἱστορεῖται δ᾽ ἔνια τῶν πεδίων σπείρεσϑαι δι᾽ ἔτους δὶς μὲν τῇ ζειᾷ, τὸ δὲ τρίτον ἐλύμῳ”[…] (Geo 5,4,3). Millet and panicum occupy the soil for a shorter time than wheat and barley.
At the table, the Romans soon abandoned the consumption of barley [...]”[…]”barley is the most ancient of foods, as shown by the Athenian custom testified to us by Menander and by the nickname of the gladiators who were called hordearii. Even the Greeks prefer farinata made with barley and there are many ways to do it.”[…], […] “Antiquissimum in cibos hordeum, sicut Atheniensium ritu Menandro auctore apparet et gladiatorum cognomine, qui hordearii vocabantur, polentam quoque Graeci non aliunde praeferunt, pluribus fit haec modis “[… ] (NH XVIII,72) . This long transfer of cereals will still continue in Roman times until the consumption of wheat that already in the first century after Christ will make the fortune of bakers, as well observed in the long run bas-relief from the tomb of Eurisace at Porta Maggiore in Rome.
An important detail emerges in the bas-relief: the presence of a mixer. This device has never been found by archaeologists except in Pompeii. The mixer constitutes a first test of the processing of large quantities of dough which begin to require a greater processing effort, also in function of the greater quantity of gluten contained in it. However, the Roman era marks a very precise watershed between the consumption of the aristocracy and that of rural populations. In the countryside cooked wheat was often consumed, very difficult to digest and not bread flour as Galen testifies [...] "we ate plenty of it and felt a sense of heaviness, to the point that it seemed that there was mud in the stomach" […], […] ἐϕάγομέν τε οὖν αὐτῶν δαψιλῶς, ᾐσϑανόμεϑά τε κατὰ τὴν γαστέρα βάρους, ὡς δοκεϐοα δοκẼεοα πηλὸν αὐτῇ”[…] (VI, Chap. 7). The rural populations continued to eat the coagulated batters as documented by a painting by the Dutchman Aertsen in 1560.
The batters they were the fruit of a widespread poverty within which the scarce flour was completely heat coagulated and not kneaded and then fermented. A small and low pot, the simple flame of the fireplace and a lot of water added to a little flour were enough. The Abruzzo ferratelle, which have now become a very pleasant dessert, are the fruit of a gastronomy that still did not fully perceive the importance of gluten. The loaves that appeared on aristocratic tables still had a reduced height and a slightly marked alveolation and a still spongy consistency as evidenced by the paintings of the seventeenth century.
Le rural populations of Puglia consumed burnt wheat, i.e. the grains of wheat fallen to the ground after the passage of the reaper and corroded by the passage of the fire that burned the stubble. Studies carried out on the nutritional composition of burnt wheat flour have confirmed that it is gluten-free, since the temperatures reached by the advancing fire irreparably damage the protein structure of the proteins. In popular gastronomy, therefore, gluten is not a nutrient present in appreciable quantities and this condition will be consolidated with the introduction of rice and corn which between the tenth and fifteenth centuries increased the availability of carbohydrates. Both rice and corn are totally gluten-free and their preparation did not require an oven. In rural areas, in fact, the stabilization of families in villages is a very slow phenomenon and the oven for baking bread is frequently unique for the entire village.
Well-leavened and high bread, as well as pasta, are the result of the evolution of taste which progressively imposes soft, digestible and pleasant food preparations on the palate. Furthermore, the tribute that the aristocratic culture paid to the pastry shop should not be overlooked, which began to distinguish itself thanks to the majesty of its desserts. Already in 1763 Jean Simeon Chardin paints his brioche which strikes the attention for its remarkable height. These preparations are not only the result of a more reinforced gluten, but are also the result of saturated fats added to the flour and able to give rigidity to the final dough.
Jean Simeon Chardin, La Brioche 1763.
So the search for ever taller, more fragrant loaves with good honeycombs is the result of the evolution of taste that has led man to select wheats with an increasingly tenacious gluten. The choice of ancient cereals (Solina wheat in Abruzzo or Jervicella in the Marche) may be dictated by the desire to take flours less rich in gluten, but the inevitable consequence is the renunciation of the consumption of tall and soft cereal derivatives to go back to choosing focaccia and slippers.
