Insalata di farro - the salad with wholefood
Insalata di Farro is a summery grain salad
#LebensfreudeChiantiClassico
In my last blog posts under the hashtag #LebensfreudeChiantiClassico, everything revolved around the typical Tuscan, salt-free bread Pane Toscano and various recipes with it. Today I would like to present a recipe without bread. It's the so-called insalata di farro - spelt salad.
Spelt - grain from the Garfagnana region
Farro is the grain spelt. And this grain has a long tradition in Tuscany. Or more precisely in Garfagnana. This is a green, mountainous landscape in the Italian province of Lucca. It is where the Apuan Alps and the Apennines meet. This region used to be one of the poorest in Italy.
Chestnuts, which grow very well in this rainy region, and farro, or spelt, were an integral part of the diet. Spelt, which has been attracting more and more attention in our part of the world in recent years, was originally brought to Italy by the Greeks. After all, spelt is the oldest grain that humans have cultivated and used in the kitchen. The people of Garfagnana soon realized that spelt is a very nutritious grain and began to cultivate it more and more. Today, Farro della Garfagnana is even a protected product and, as with wine, efforts are being made to increase organic cultivation.
Farro
Spelt is the oldest grain cultivated by humans
The beginning of a friendship with the Insalata di farro
When I came to Tuscany for the first time with my husband in 1998, one of the places we visited was the coast, and it was there that I ate an insalata di farro for the first time in a restaurant. I was actually expecting a normal leaf salad, an insalata, as a starter - my knowledge of Italian was still very modest at the time - and when the dish was served, I didn't know exactly what it was at first. It was only later that I found out that it was a spelt salad. Despite my disappointed expectations, it tasted great!
A super-easy, quick summer recipe
You don't need much to prepare the base for an insalata di farro: spelt, preferably peeled spelt, tomatoes and cucumber, onion, olives, salt, pepper, olive oil and - importantly for me - red wine vinegar. I then chill the salad in the fridge. This completes the basic version of the Insalata di Farro. In my opinion, it tastes best when the salad has had a few hours to infuse.
If you want to spice up your Insalata di Farro a little, you have many, many options: For example, briefly fried seafood or small squid are perfect. I personally like the version with diced cream cheese, especially on hot summer days - sometimes you can also get "ricotta salata", a salted, firm ricotta variety. Add fresh herbs, such as basil - simply delicious!
Basically, there are no limits to your imagination here. Whatever you have in the fridge can go into the insalata di farro. A perfect summer meal that can also be prepared wonderfully for guests, is also healthy and can be vegetarian or vegan if desired. Buon appetito!