|
|
From an original recipe of the XII century, Pantondo,
a cake rich in spices, honey and tradition
|
 |
Pantondo is the result of the collaboration of a group of scholars of the Middle Ages and Biscottificio Belli: the idea was to create a product which faithfully reproduced the instructions of a XII century recipe.
Novels and private diaries recount how, in the Florence of Lorenzo de' Medici, illustrious figures such as Michelangelo Buonarroti and Giorgio Vasari, or humble citizens used to eat, on All Saints' Day, Peppered or Spicey Bread, according to a tradition dating back to the Middle Ages.
Linked to the figure of the spicemonger and the trade in spices in Italian merchant cities, this "special bread" seems to have originated in the great Benedictine abbeys of central-northern Italy where the availability of prime quality ingredients and abundant stores of oriental spices (among which pepper reigned supreme) merged with the presence of cooks worthy of princes’ courts (from which many of them came, as indeed did the monks).
In this environment the gastronomic culture too was imbued with the same symbolic references which pervaded the microcosm and macrocosm of the Middle Ages and the individual ingredients of the Special Bread thus referred to other meanings: for example the honey, the food of the Gods par excellence and symbol of God’s preaching in the prophesy of Isaiah (7:15), is combined in this preparation with the white almond, symbol of purity.
Peppered Bread was therefore not a mere food but a sort of instrument of meditation which often accompanied the pilgrim or traveller on his journey (it was in fact a "long-life" product), providing him with a sweet metaphor of his spiritual journey.
It was thus that the wayfarer preparing to cross the Apennine between Tuscany and Romagna between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, would often find in his pocket bread like the Pantondo, the recipe for which has been recreated from the documented traditions of the Benedictine monasteries in that area.
Some difficulties were encountered in searching for the recipe itself in that, as one might imagine, it was not written in a normal "cookery book"...
The efforts of historians were therefore directed at tracing the medieval sweetmeat through the study and analysis of manuscripts of the period, so as to faithfully reproduce a cake used on religious occasions and important festivities.
Subsequently a considerable number of trials were made at estimating the proportions (particularly of the spices) and searching for the best leaven, a determining element for this type of product.
During this phase the experience of Biscottificio Belli in using the mother leaven was of fundamental importance in achieving a satisfying result.
Lastly the hand-wrapping, while overlooking current hygiene-health legislation was an obligatory choice given the historic nature of the product: so finally, here is Pantondo
|
|
|
