contadino sh*t: the sexiest springtime green

plus two recipes for agretti

Welcome to contadino shit! a newsletter series that will save you money and make mother earth happy by exploring Italian veggies and learning simple recipes straight from the contadini - Italian farmers who hold the real secrets of Italian cuisine (aka all the sexy veggies and plants that make the Italian peninsula the glorious place that it is!)

How is the world not obsessed with agretti? Of course, I wouldn’t want that because then we’d have a bunch of sad, conventional agretti on shelves, begging for a home.

Well, that would never be the case because agretti is just too sexy for that.

Agretti - the seaweed without the sea taste

The land greens that, if I were to assume, were once a prehistoric underwater treat of some bizarre-looking dinosaur. Thank god we don’t have to fight those creatures to have these greens. I’d lose a limb for agretti.

sluttispaghetti

A post shared by @sluttispaghetti

In fact agretti is often confused with the Japanese okahijiki, known as land seaweed. Not the same plant, but you get the picture.

Agretti has about a million names. But the best one might be barba di frate - friar or monks’ beard (with the worst name being saltwort. Ew.)

These straggly, funny-looking greens look like they were modeled after some hobbit guarding a creek in Monty Python. Also, there’s no doubt these greens are blessed. Whatever monk gave them their name was definitely sipping some good blood of Christ.

Like all good things, agretti was once forgotten

It’s crazy that this sexy vitamin-rich veggie was once BURNED to become soda ash, aka sodium carbonate. No, not baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) - soda ash is a compound that was in high demand back in the 18th century to make soap or glass. There are now more efficient ways to produce soda ash instead of burning delicious veggies. Sadly though, the switch to more industrial production methods left agretti in the dark, appreciated only by farmers and peasants in the Italian regions of Lazio and Tuscany.

And that is why agretti is 100% contadino sh*t. They kept this green alive, reaping the vitamin B, vitamin A, fiber, and all the goodness to keep their families living long and strong.

natoora

A post shared by @natoora

Agretti is one of the first signs that Spring has arrived, with bunches of the beard-looking greens are falling off market shelves in Rome and Florence. You better catch them - because today agretti goes fast, and it ain’t here for long. Plus you can really only find it in Tuscany and Lazio, though some farms do produce it and ship it elsewhere.

In the States, some California farmers produce it and Campo Rosso Farms sells it at Union Square Market in NY. Will report back to confirm availabilty.

people like it raw

But I don’t, really. Blame my IBS, but I fully believe these greens are more belly-friendly and taste best lightly boiled or sautéed. That’s how the contadini would do it. Who could risk dying from some random bacteria on a leaf? There was no pepcid or amoxiccilin at the time. That’s why the raw diet is bullshit, especially for the fact that it gives you raging gas.

Pardon my honesty. Let’s move on to the agretti recipes!

Agretti recipes: two ways