EXTRA-VIRGIN OLIVE OIL BREADSTICKS IN THREE FLAVORS

Preparation time: 20 minutes + 1 hour to rise + 7-8 minutes cooking time

     

Ingredients for 4 servings
soft wheat flour (preferably Italiantype flour) 4 cups (500 g)
brewer’s yeast 1 oz (30 g)
extra-virgin olive oil 3 tbsp + 2 tsp (50 ml)
water 1 cup (250 ml)
fresh rosemary, finely chopped 1 oz (30 g) about 1 cup
sun-dried tomatoes, finely chopped
3 tbsp (20 g) black olives, finely chopped 3/4 oz (20 g)
sugar 1 3/4 tsp (7 g)
cornmeal or semolina as needed
salt 1 1/2 tsp (10 g)

Method
Dissolve the yeast in 2/3 cup (150 ml) water. Combine with the flour, remaining water, sugar and oil. Dissolve the salt in a few drops of water and add it at the very end. Divide the dough into 3 equal pieces. Mix the rosemary into 1 piece, the sun-dried tomatoes into another and the olives into the third. Cover them each in plastic wrap and let them rise in a warm place until they double in size. Cut each one into pieces as thick as your finger. Dip them in cornmeal or semolina and stretch them into breadsticks (long or short as you prefer) by hand. Place them in a pan lined with parchment paper and immediately bake in a preheated oven at 500° F (260° C) until golden brown and crispy, about 7-8 minutes. The  mysterious origins of breadsticks Legends about the origins of a particular food often pop up after it’s become popular. This was the case for breadsticks, a new stickshaped bread from Piedmont. It seems that the invention, or at least the popularity of breadsticks is linked to the history of the House of Savoy. Young Vittorio Amedeo II (17th century) was in poor health and often suffered from fevers and intestinal disturbances. The court doctors, in keeping with the dietary principles of the time, attributed these problems to the consumption of partially raw bread. So the bakers were asked to produce a new kind of bread: light, pure, healthy, and well cooked, almost like a hard cookie. But it’s more likely that breadsticks, or grissini, are simply an extreme version of gherrsa or grissia, a traditional Piedmontese bread, similar to the baguette that’s still so popular in France. One thing is definite – breadsticks were long reserved for aristocratic tables only.

OLIVE BREADSTICKS

Preparation time: 1 hour and 30 minutes + 20-25 minutes cooking time

     

Ingredients for 10 servings
all-purpose flour 4 cups (500 g)
water 1 cup (250 ml)
brewer’s yeast 1/2 oz (15 g)
salt 1 1/2 tsp (10 g)
sugar 3 1/2 tsp (15 g)
pitted green olives, roughly chopped
3 1⁄2 oz (100 g) about 23 large
extra-virgin olive oil 3 tbsp + 2 tsp (50 ml)

Method
Mix the flour, water, oil and yeast. Dissolve the salt in a few drops of water and add it to the mix. Knead the dough for a few minutes, then add the olives (roughly chopped). Cover the dough with a cloth and let it rise in a warm place for 20 minutes. Divide it into pieces of equal size and shape them into breadsticks (you should get about 10). Arrange in a pan lined with parchment paper and let rise in a warm place until they’ve doubled in size. Bake a preheated oven at 400° F (200° C) until golden brown and crispy, about 20-25 minutes, depending on the size of the breadsticks.

A thousand types of bread
If Italy is the country of “a hundred cities” and “a thousand bell towers,” then there are even more traditional breads to be enjoyed. This food, simultaneously simple and complex, has historically taken on many forms. Though it remains universally recognizable as “bread,” it always manifests itself in different flavors with different features. Depending on the socio-economic conditions of where it is produced, the ritual meaning connected to it, and the intended culinary use, bread can be large or small, white or black, tapered, ring-shaped, braided, or an infinite number of other shapes. The creativity of the Italian people has resulted in many different forms of bread, from the basic loaf (whose semispherical shape seems to fit the curve of your hands) to longer shapes (probably a nod to pagan fertility symbols), to the ring shape that recalls a sun disk. Bread still plays a cultural, magical, recreational, and convivial role that is unparalleled.