Category: Genetic diversity

Luigi’s Nibble this morning prompted me to look again for one of the seminal papers in the Italian use of wild agrobiodiversity: Pistic, traditional food from Western Friuli, N.E. Italy. ((Maurizio G. Paoletti, A. L. Dreon, & G. G. Lorenzoni (1995). Pistic, traditional food from Western Friuli, N.E. Italy. Economic Botany, 49 (1), 26-30. DOI: 10.1007/BF02862273)) The abstract says:

Western Friuli, Italy, there is a small area near the town of Pordenone where an ancient rite of spring is still carried out. This is the preparation of a special dish, known as “pistic,” a collection of 56 wild herbaceous meadow and wood plants which are boiled and then sautéed together. This practice is still alive in a few areas of Friuli today and possibly goes back to pre-Roman Celtic cultures in this part of Friuli. The number of herbaceous plants used in this dish is extraordinarily high (56), especially when compared to the low number normally used in other conventional dishes. “Pistic” is therefore important, not only because it represents a quantitatively high use of wild herbs in the diet of the rural population, but also because it reflects environmental awareness, in that the archaic method of naming, identifying and using these plants still exists today. Similar rural practices include the use of “pot herbs” in Great Britain and in France the cooking of “mesclun.”

So many questions. This was more than 10 years ago; are the people of western Friuli still making pistic? What if you can only find 55 of the species? How do people remember the names of the plants? Are there any other dishes that use more species? What would it matter if some of the species could no longer be found in the wild?

Of course, the Italians, let alone the Friulians, are not alone in their use of wild plants, especially in spring. But they do seem to take wild plants more seriously than anyone else in the Mediterranean.