A rustic Easter Sunday lunch in Campania

While near Caserta to research our feature on buffalo-milk mozzarella, we talked to some people about the traditional country lunch prepared on Easter Sunday, in the Italian province of Campania, and were helped particularly by Nerina, the retired cook in the De Renzis household.

These traditional dishes use key ingredients that are easily found in the small towns and villages all over Campania. They date back to the days when people did not travel easily and the food used in cooking was that readily to hand. Meat was a luxury, and the cooking of the lamb, apart from its religious symbolism (commemorating the sacrificing of Christ in Christianity), was also a rare opportunity for some celebratory protein. The Easter Sunday lunch menu is a hearty one: frittata Pasquale di Campania (a giant omelette), anti pasto (the usual cured meats and olives), cicoria in brodo (broth with curly endive, to recall the bitter herbs Christ ate in the desert), pasta al forno (baked pasta), agnello e patata al forno (roast lamb and potatoes), colombo Pasquale (a cake shaped like a dove – many are now sold commercially even in Malta), and pastiera di grano or tortiera rustica.

The table is set with some hard-boiled eggs, plates of sliced oranges and lemons, and the piece de resistance: frittata Pasquale di Campania. This is an enormous omelette made with a minimum of 33 eggs - one for each year of the life of Jesus Christ. People from different villages have their own particular way of adding ingredients to the frittata, but the basis of it remains the astonishing number of eggs used. In the village of Nocino, they use salsicca fatta in casa (homemade sausage), cheese, a lot of parsley, the tops of fresh garlic, and a hint of bacon. In the hamlet of Montanaro, where we stayed, wild asparagus is plentiful, and so it is the distinctive ingredient in this Easter omelette.

Some ideas for fresh salads