Pizza e foje

In the peasant cooking of the Chieti area, foje are leafy greens, gathered in the fields or grown in the garden: wild chicory, chard, black cabbage, turnip tops, escarole. They are boiled and sautéed in the pan with garlic, oil and chilli.

The pizza is a flat bread of maize flour and water, baked in the hearth or oven. It is crumbled over the greens or served alongside: together they make a simple, nourishing one-dish meal.

For the cornbread

• 400 g maize flour (finely ground)
• About 400 ml boiling water
• A pinch of salt
• A drizzle of oil

For the foje

• 1.5 kg mixed greens (chicory, chard, black cabbage, turnip tops, escarole)
• 3 garlic cloves
• Chilli or dried sweet pepper
• Extra virgin olive oil, salt

1. For the pizza, pour the salted boiling water over the maize flour, stirring with a spoon until it forms a soft, workable dough.
2. Spread the dough in an oiled tin, a couple of centimetres thick, and bake at 200 °C for 40 minutes until it has a golden crust.
3. Clean and wash the greens well; boil them in plenty of salted water, starting with the toughest, and drain.
4. In a wide pan warm the oil with garlic and chilli; add the squeezed greens and sauté for 10 minutes, stirring.
5. Crumble some of the pizza into the pan and let it take on the flavours for a few minutes.
6. Serve the foje hot with the rest of the pizza in slices and a drizzle of raw oil.

• With fried, crumbled dried sweet pepper the dish takes on the typical Chieti flavour.
• The greens can be boiled the day before.
• If you have no time for the pizza, use toasted country bread.

We do not have photos of this dish yet: the image is an illustration made for this page.

Pizza e foje is one of the oldest dishes of Abruzzo and Molise peasant cooking: it was made with what the countryside offered, herbs gathered in the ditches and maize flour, cheaper than wheat.

The cornbread was baked on the hearth fire, covered by the coppo and embers.