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In the dialect of the Lucani (as natives of Basilicata are known) maritare means “to wed,” and I have always thought that this wonderful soup was so named because it was customarily served at wedding celebrations. Recently, however, while doing some research, I came upon another explanation of why it is called maritata—because it weds vegetables (in the soup base) with meat (in the polpette), and with this added protein it becomes a complete and balanced one-course meal. I like both interpretations of the name and believe they’re compatible. Certainly a young couple, on the brink of their first night as newlyweds, can use this fortifying nourishment! There are many ways to prepare and serve a soup with multiple elements like this one, and you can of course play around with the recipe here. One variation is to fry the meatballs rather than poaching them. Though it takes a bit more work, it does give another layer of flavor (see my recipe for Meatballs in Broth in the Umbria chapter, page 196, for instructions on frying little meatballs for soup). Another option is to add cubes of provola to the soup just before serving. If you can get a good-quality Italian provola (mild provolone), this embellishment is superb. I’ve included instructions for this step at the end of the main recipe.

The Italian title calls for John Dory as the fish, and by all means use it if you can find it, but otherwise sea bass will be just as delicious.

The second recipe for cavatelli with cauliflower, casareccie vruocchele e vredocchie, has a bit more complexity with toasted almonds and bread crumbs. Typically, this kind of dish is made with fresh home-made pastas like cavatelli—casarecce means “homemade”—but a short dried pasta such as gemelli can be substituted.

Life in the hilly inland of Molise was for centuries a pastoral existence, and the traditional staples of the pastoral table are still essential elements in cooking alla Molisana. Ricotta, a nutritious and always available by-product of cheesemaking, thus appears on the table in many forms, such as gnocchi, with pastas and vegetables, and in soups—or eaten just plain, with bread. Here’s one of the most delicious ways that ricotta can be enjoyed: drained, shaped in small pieces, breaded, and fried, ricotta fritta gains new dimensions of texture and flavor. Serve these fried ricotta morsels as a savory appetizer or main course, in a puddle of tomato sauce or on top of braised vegetables. On the other hand, if you top them with some poached peaches or peach preserve or fruit jam with a dollop of whipped cream, you have a glorious dessert.

Cauliflower is one of my favorite vegetables, and I regret that many people don’t sufficiently appreciate its unique flavor and nutritional value. This is not the case in Molise, where it is cooked often and creatively, as exemplified by the following two simple vegetarian pasta dishes. The first recipe, maccarun ch’i hiucc, is zesty with garlic and peperoncino.

I love all kinds of Italian fish soups, having sampled countless versions of zuppa di pesce, served with just enough tomatoey sauce to slurp up with a spoon, as well as brodo di pesce, a flavorful fish stock usually with nothing but rice. A new discovery for me, though, was this Molisano version of brodo di pesce, with chard and peppers floating between chunks of seafood in a savory broth. Served with grilled bread or a slab of grilled polenta, it is indeed a complete meal. Relish it with a glass of crispy white wine from the region’s distinctive Falanghina grape varietal, and you can taste Molise beckoning you.

On my recent visits to Abruzzo, I have been impressed as never before by the region’s Adriatic coast, with its picturesque trabocchi, the little fishing shacks that hover over the water at the end of long wooden piers, and by the fresh coastal cuisine we enjoyed, meal after meal. Here’s a recipe inspired by the delightful lunches of that visit, which we sometimes ate in view of the trabocchi, where the smoke rising from the ends of the piers told me the fishermen were cooking lunch, too. It is just the kind of fresh-from-the-sea dish they make, lots of shellfish quickly cooked in garlicky tomato sauce, then tossed with a pasta that traps the nuggets of fish and sauce in its hollows. My choice are the fat tubes called paccheri, a sort of giant rigatoni. In my opinion, there is no greater gustatory experience than the marvelous squirting that fills your mouth when you bite into paccheri full of sauce and juicy seafood. This pasta di trabocchi also has the distinctly Abruzzese touch of saffron (picked in the high plains of Navelli) to add complexity and depth to the sauce. And for me, saffron has a magical effect on the palate, creating the illusion of distant, mystic places. It’s a fitting flavor in a dish of the sea, and a symbol for those that travel the sea, the mariners of the Abruzzo coast.

I love ground-meat sauces that cook slowly for hours, allowing an exchange of flavors between the meat, cooking liquids, and seasonings and concentrating them into a dense, delicious dressing. Emilia-Romagna is famous for such sauces, the classic Ragù alla Bolognese (page 382) and Ragù di Carni Bianche (page 137) among them. This Abruzzese sauce is quite similar in its procedures, though it uses only pork rather than a mixture of ground meats. It also has some of the typical flavoring touches of the region, notably a generous dash of peperoncino and a greater volume of tomatoes, rendering it a bit more acidic and definitely more lively than a conventional, mellow Bolognese. It’s a great dressing for homemade maccheroni alla chitarra, and wonderful with other pastas, too. At home, whenever I’m preparing a dish like this that takes a long time—and yields such delicious results—I make more of it than I need for one occasion. Another great, effortless meal is a good reward for the hours and effort devoted to cooking the sauce. That’s why I have formulated this recipe to yield enough ragù to dress a pound of maccheroni or other pasta on the day it is cooked, with an equal amount to pack away in the freezer.

Agro means “sour,” and in this refreshing and fast pasta sauce, there’s plenty of lively acidity: white wine, freshly squeezed lemon juice, and grated lemon zest. These are nicely balanced with butter and cream, and all the cooking takes barely 5 minutes—less than the time you need to cook your maccheroni alla chitarra. Be sure that all your ingredients are ready—and the pasta water is at the boil—when you start cooking the sauce. Best with maccheroni alla chitarra, this dressing is also delicious with fresh tagliatelle or dry spaghetti or linguine.

In this recipe, careful cooking brings out the wonderful flavor of fresh zucchini to make a lovely dressing for maccheroni (or other pasta). Select small, firm zucchini, though—preferably right from the garden!—and if you can, pick, or purchase, zucchini flowers at the same time. They make the dish especially festive. As the name all’Aquilana suggests, this has distinctive touches of the cooking of Aquila, a city in the high inland province of Abruzzo: you can’t miss the fragrant presence of saffron (presumably the splendid zafferano d’Aquila; see page 243), and the sauce’s final enrichment with egg yolks is a typical embellishment in regional kitchens. All together, this is a flavorful and satisfying first or main course. It’s thoroughly vegetarian—though you can use poultry stock in place of water for a somewhat richer dish.

This wonderful country-style pasta dish requires almost no cooking, but fresh, flavorful ingredients are essential. Most important is to find fresh whole-milk ricotta (not the processed, packaged variety), often sold in good Italian markets and whole-food stores. If you can find artisan-made sheep’s- or goat’s-milk ricotta, that would be best of all. Another key ingredient is dry pasta made from farro, a kind of wheat berry usually cooked as a whole grain (try my Farro with Roasted Pepper Sauce, page 167). Farro pasta is quite popular in Abruzzo and is manufactured there, in many shapes, by both small artisanal pastifici (pasta factories) and the big pasta companies. Look for it in your market, or order it online (see Sources, page 387); either ziti or spaghetti would be my choice for this dish. It is delicious, nutritious, and moderately priced. You’ll also need tender rucola (arugula), good grated pecorino, and excellent extra-virgin olive oil. Once you have all your ingredients, the preparation is fast and easy.

Italians have many local and regional names for crespelle (what the French, and most Americans, call crêpes) and innumerable ways to enjoy them. In Abruzzo, these traditional thin pancakes are called scrippelle and are the versatile foundation for both savory and sweet dishes. Here’s a typically simple casserole of spinach-filled scrippelle, lightly dressed with tomato sauce and a shower of grated cheese. Serve bubbling hot from the oven as an appetizer or a fine vegetarian main dish (even meat-lovers will be satisfied). The batter for these scrippelle is a bit thicker than the usual crespelle batter, but it is easy to work with and produces a pancake with fine texture. The Abruzzesi use them in all sorts of creative ways: layered with cheeses and sauce like a lasagna or a pasticiatta, rolled and stuffed and baked like manicotti. A popular technique is to stack and slice the scrippelle into thin, tagliatelle-like ribbons. These ribbons are often used as a soup garnish (see box), or in clever desserts, as I show you later in this chapter (page 261).

A minestra paesana of humble ingredients, this is a delightfully satisfying and flavorful soup. The soup base is built on a pestata, a bit of tomato, and, if you have one, a piece of hard rind left from grating cheese. (I hope you save these! They are a great addition to almost any soup or stock.) One of my favorite vegetables, celery—and lots of it—gives the soup a delicate yet distinctive taste. And just before serving, a few handfuls of ditalini (or other short pasta) cook in the broth, to provide texture and substance. Don’t add the pasta until you are almost ready to serve, because it becomes soft and soggy left in the soup. In Abruzzo, as elsewhere in Italy, only al dente pasta should grace a soup bowl—and that’s what this recipe will give you.

The dough for maccheroni alla chitarra has to be slightly firmer than usual for fresh pasta; it requires a bit more flour, so it will cut neatly when pressed against the chitarra. If you have a kitchen scale, weighing the flour is best: start with 10 ounces of flour, equivalent to 2 cups of unsifted flour, slightly packed, and add more as needed. Though I always tell you that you can make fresh pasta dough by hand (because it is so easy!), here I recommend the food-processor method, to incorporate the greater amount of flour quickly.

Legumes are a specialty of growers in L’Aquila, the big inland province of Abruzzo, and the pride of the region is the small, tender lentils grown in the mountain village of Santo Stefano di Sessanio. Since my recent visit to this remote, rugged settlement, I have had no doubt that it was in just such a place that this hearty and warming winter soup, thick with lentils and chestnuts, was created. These native foods, so good together, can surely sustain one through long cold winters in the high country. Unfortunately, the delicious lenticchie of Santo Stefano di Sessanio are a limited commodity and not available here. Instead, I recommend using lentils from Castelluccio in Umbria (see Sources, page 387) in this soup. Ordinary lentils are fine as well, though some larger types may need soaking or longer cooking time. Chestnuts, grown along the length of the Apennines, are also essential to Abruzzese cuisine. In season, they’re enjoyed in everything from pastas to desserts, and then, like lentils, dried for winter cooking or milled into flour. Though this soup can be made with fresh (or frozen) chestnuts, I use dried chestnuts, as is often the case in Abruzzo. These are available year-round and spare you the work of peeling. I also like the way they cook slowly without disintegrating, giving the soup a particularly nice texture. They do require an overnight soak, however, before you start cooking.

Here’s a typically simple, rustic pasta from Umbria, which would be made with seasonal local leafy greens, both cultivated and foraged wild varieties. Although we don’t have many of the same choices as in Italy, there are plenty of suitable leafy greens available in our American markets now. Certainly chard, spinach, and common chicory are delicious in this dish, and young beet, collard, dandelion, mustard, or turnip greens would be good, too. Many dried pastas are delicious with this dressing of greens, and I particularly like dried egg fettuccine (with its extra richness and color); gemelli and orecchiette are also good choices. And I love homemade fresh gnocchi with this sauce, too.