Macco di San Giuseppe di Favette e Finocchio Selvatico

Calabria

‹ Calabria

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Origin

Calabria (widespread)

Description

The Calabrian version of the fava purée soup: dried, split fava beans dissolved in water with wild fennel fronds until they become a thick, intensely flavoured purée, served with a drizzle of new-pressed olive oil and toasted bread. The Calabrian macco differs from the Sicilian by the inclusion of more wild fennel (the dominant flavour) and sometimes a piece of guanciale cooked in the pot from the beginning. It is made specifically for the feast of San Giuseppe (19 March) and for Lent — fava beans being among the few proteins available in the pre-Easter mountain calendar.

III

The Thread

—The Sicilian cousin: same dried fava bean dissolution technique, less fennel character Sicily

—The Puglian fava purée served with bitter chicory — same dissolved bean technique, different accompaniment Puglia

—Dried fava beans slow-cooked until yielding, dressed with raw oil and spice — the North African ancestor Egyptian

Flavour Context

Earth-sweet fava purée suffused with wild fennel anise — thick, warming, lenten, the Calabrian spring feast soup that connects a mountain peasant culture to two thousand years of legume cooking

Pillars V — VII

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