If the Neapolitan Pizza is identified with the history of Naples, it can be said, without a shadow of a doubt, that the Pastiera, the characteristic wheat and ricotta cake that has celebrated Easter in the shadow of Vesuvius since time immemorial - even if today it is consumed throughout the year even at Christmas – it represents the deepest soul of its inhabitants. And just like the city, which grew up through stratifications and overlapping of eras from the Greeks to the Romans, the Angevins, the Spaniards, the French passing through the most disparate dominations, so also the Pastiera embodies the feeling of all the stories that have made this city greatcertainly a contradictory feeling that knows how to combine love and death, wealth and poverty, joy and drama, lightheartedness and sacrifice But which is then metabolized into a great desire for life that all the adversities that have accumulated over its history have never succeeded to erase from the soul of the Neapolitans. Why the pastiera is a tribute to spring, to the life that resumes after the long winter sleep, Easter heralds, not only the resurrection of Christ but also the reawakening of nature, it is something intimate, familiar, something felt almost in the DNA. It is a hymn to the joy of living.
A proof? Try asking a Neapolitan where to buy the best pastiera. He will kindly mention the temples of Neapolitan confectionary gastronomy: first of all Scaturchio, the old Moccia, Pintauro, Carraturo, Cimmino. But then, after having diligently carried out his task by answering your question exhaustively, he will pause, look you in the eyes and, with a wink, he will tell you a recurring phrase of all true Neapolitans: "But the best of all is eaten at home mine, why no one makes pastiera the way mum makes it“. And there will be no way to contradict him, because every Neapolitan feels the pastiera as something of him. Even in some villages in the Naples district in the past, around Easter, it was customary, in the week preceding Easter, for the ladies to visit each other's houses because each lady of the house displayed pastiere and casatielli on the buffet, another product from historic oven of Neapolitan Easter culture, which he had created to cheer up family celebrations. Well, if unfortunately a lady's pastiera had come too burnt or the casatiello hadn't risen enough, then the lady preferred to say she was busy with other matters and escape the ritual of visits from her friends in order not to submit to the ironic comments of the women of the village.
The origins in the ceremonies dedicated to the goddess Ceres
Legends abound about the origins of the Pastiera. The first could only go back to the Romans and to the cult of the goddess Ceres, maternal divinity of fertility, tutelary deity of crops but also goddess of birth, since it was believed that all flowers, fruit and living beings were her gifts as well as it was recognized that he had taught men how to cultivate the fields. For this i Romans paid homage to her in the spring by giving her the products she had given to humanity, therefore milk and honey, two recurring components of the first ancient ceremonies and wheat, a symbol of wealth and fertility, which, dipped in milk, represented the fusion of the animal kingdom with the vegetable one and then the eggs, symbol of nascent life. All then enriched by orange sprigs which with their very fragrant flowers spread a pleasant spring aroma. We practically already have all the products that will make the generations to come greedy in the future.
Then there is an anthropological version which refers to the story of some fishermen surprised at sea by a storm. The wives ashore worried about their husbands thought it best to leave some offerings on the shore to ingratiate themselves with the sea, placing some baskets of ricotta, candied fruit, wheat, eggs and orange blossom, thus hoping to appease the waters and see the return of the husbands at home. The following day when they went to the beach to welcome the return of the fishermen's boats they saw that during the night the waves of the sea had mixed all the ingredients, the early morning sun had then done its part by heating the mixture and so the fishermen, who had escaped to danger, they were able to taste this marvelous delight of the palate.
And King Ferdinand of Bourbon rejoiced to see the Queen smile
We must then get to the 500th century to find another origin of the pastiera, this time located inside the monastery of the cloistered nuns of San Gregorio Armeno. The nuns condemned by the law of Maggiorasco to shut themselves up in a convent, so that the family's assets would not be dispersed and everything would go to the eldest son, prepared Easter sweets to send to their more fortunate noble relatives so that they would not forget them. With the symbol of the grain used for the sepulchres, the egg, the sheep's ricotta, all components of high religious content, and the addition of orange blossoms, taken from the trees that were never lacking in Neapolitan gardens, they prepared this sweet wishes to send to their families. With one particularity: it seems that the nuns, who, by doing little exercise, had very buxom buttocks and hips, to mix the dough they sat on it and with undulating movements, while they prayed, they managed to maintain an adequate heat to the dough and above all to give it softness.
But perhaps the funniest story of all dates back to the times of Ferdinand II of Bourbon married to the austere Maria Theresa of Austria, a woman prone to depression and not inclined to smile. Maria Teresa, wanting to satisfy her greedy husband, always ordered sweet pizzas. One day a court caterer brought her a slice of pastiera, the queen tasted hers and a smile of satisfaction escaped her. This filled King Ferdinand with immense pleasure who came up with one of his witty mottos "To make my wife smile we needed pastiera now, I'll have to wait for next Easter to see her smile again!". The thing ran immediately on everyone's lips in Naples to the point that a poet solemnized it in an amusing poem that is worth reporting:
Ferdinand reigned in Napule
Ca passed and jurnate zompettiando;
While instead a' mugliera, 'Onna Teresa,
She was always angry. Hanging face
O' musso luongo, nun redeva maje,
Comm'avess been through so much trouble.
Nù bellu juorno Amelia, a' maid
He said to her: “Majesty, what's in Pastiera.
Likes it's women, men like it's creatures:
Eggs, cottage cheese, wheat, and re ciure water,
Mixed together with sugar and flour
A pu purtà nnanz o'Rre: e pur' a Rigina”.
Maria Teresa made an ugly face:
Mastecanno, receive: "It's o'Paraviso!"
And even o 'pizz'a riso escaped.
Then o' Rre said: “And what a marina!
It makes you laugh, what's up with Pastiera?
My wife, come over, give me a hug!
Chistu sweet do you like? And now I know
I order the cook that, starting now,
Stà Pastiera face it a little more often.
Not only to Pasca, which otherwise is a damage;
pe te te laugh adda passà n'at' anno!"
Scaturchio a Calabrian that Pastiera has made Neapolitan
But the Pastiera doesn't just enter the amusing nursery rhyme, in the 600th century it also made its entry into a more authoritative context, "La Gatta Cenerentola" contained in Lo Cunto de li Cunti by Giambattista Basile who describing the festivities given by the king to find the girl who had lost the shoe writes:
«And, the destenato juorno has come, oh my good: what a mazzecatorio and what a bazzara that he did! Where did so many pastiere and casatielle come from? Where do you get them and the porpettes? Where are the maccarune and graviuole? So much so that nce could eat n'asserceto format.»
As we said at the beginning, sad and cheerful, ironic and serious stories are built around a sweet, because that's life, and the Neapolitans have experienced it firsthand.
Moving on to the present day, to say today Pastiera in Naples historically is to say Scaturchio, the historic pastry shop that has been open for a century in Piazza San Domenico Maggiore, in the heart of the city. The most famous Neapolitan pastry shop in the world not only for the Pastiera but also for the Babà (one of its Vesuvius-shaped maxibabas almost one meter wide was served in 1994 on the tables of the greats of the earth hosted in Naples on the occasion of the G7), or for the exquisite Buchteln that the Neapolitans more familiarly baptized as «Brioscine del Danube».
A name therefore that refers to the best and sweetest that the Neapolitan pastry tradition has produced. But not everyone knows that the Neapolitan Scaturchio family, at least in its origins, has little. In fact, they come from Calabria, from an almost unknown village, Dasà, 28 kilometers from Vibo Valentia. Here the Scaturchios had a small pastry shop that opened only at the weekend for banquets and ceremonies. Pasquale, the second of nine children who had learned the art of pastry-making from his sister Rosa, understood that if he had stayed in Dasà he would not have made it big. For this reason, armed with a great desire to undertake and succeed, he left for Naples where in 1903 he managed to open a small pastry shop in the popular via Portamedina 22 in Pignasecca still managed by his heirs today.
And shortly after he was joined by two brothers and above all by Rosa who had taught him everything in the kitchen. Giovanni also arrives last, someone who has something extra and who practically becomes the heir to the pastry-making art of his sister Rosa. And it's Giovanni who in the 20s found a place in Piazza San Domenico Maggiore, a stone's throw from the Veiled Christ, where you transfer your weapons and baggage. And it is from here that the company's great adventure starts. Because Giovanni has married a young Austro-Hungarian, Katharina Persolija who transfers to him all the secrets of Central European pastry culture, starting with a Sacher that attracts customers from all the districts of Naples, to strudels, to Buchteln: the name Scaturchio becomes synonymous with Neapolitan quality and international. Pastiere, Babà, sfogliatelle, susammielli, a typical Calabrian sweet brought to Naples by the Scaturchios and immediately adopted as Christmas sweets, enter the history of Neapolitan pastry.
The Ministerial gift of love for the legendary Sciantosa Anna Fougez
How does the 'Ministeriale' that Giovanni's brother, Francesco, an expert chocolatier and notorious womanizer devised as a token of love for Anna Fougez the great soubrette (but the term is an understatement for this sciantosa who began working with Ettore Petrolini and was the undisputed queen of show business between the two wars) created a chocolate medallion which, thanks to a secret liqueur-based recipe, kept the filling of perishable ingredients (ricotta cheese, hazelnuts, fruit) even for four months. An extraordinary invention that needed to be patented. Giuseppe immediately started the procedures to be awarded the title of Supplier of the Royal House but the patent did not arrive, until one day the pastry chef came out exhausted: «But this is a ministerial affair!» and the name remained imperishable to the Chocolate Medallion. However, in 1923 the patent also arrived. Giovanni and Katharina had six children including Ivanka who will marry a cousin who came from Calabria, Francesco Cannatello, also a pastry chef, and will inherit the restaurant together with his brother Mario, who died recently.
More than a century of history has passed since the arrival in Naples of the young Pasquale Scaturchio. Many things have also changed in the company which was recently sold by the Cannatello family to a group of entrepreneurs intent on relaunching the Scaturchio brand in Italy and around the world. Today in Naples and also outside Naples there are exceptional pastieres, the great fortune that has smiled at this dessert on Italian tables throughout the year, has meant that many pastry chefs have refined their work by focusing a lot on the quality of the raw material. But when you say Pastiera, the first name that comes to mind to associate with this extraordinary breath of spring, packaged in an aluminum wheel with lid (another patented invention) which when opened fills the house with a scent of sugar, milk, ricotta , wheat, butter, candied fruit, eggs, cinnamon and vanilla, zest and lemon and orange blossom water that moves the gastric juices to emotion, always theirs, Scaturchio.
Scaturchio pastiera is an icon of goodness and artisan excellence. Not just at Easter