Food and wine in Rieti

Capital of that part of Lazio called Sabina, Rieti is traditionally considered the geographical center of Italy, at an equal distance between the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Adriatic Sea and between the Val Valley of Aosta and Calabria. To point out this geographical particularity, in Piazza S. Rufo there is a circular monument that conventionally identifies the center of Italy.

The monument is jokingly called the Caciotta by the Jews, almost a reference to the richness of the culinary and gastronomic traditions of Sabina. Typical of Rieti are, for example, the strengozzi, flour paste, water and salt, pulled by hand and cut into thick strips, and the frognaccia alla reatina, ie lozenges of water and flour, with or without eggs. Also worth trying are the pizzicotti di Contigliano so called because deriving from the pinch that the housewife gives to the dough to peel off a small piece of it; the concavity that comes from the pinch forms a kind of orecchietta that collects the castrato sauce with which this type of pasta is accompanied.

Almost legendary is the very tasty porchetta by Poggio Bustone, available practically everywhere in Rieti, even in small retailers that serve it as a filling of padded sandwiches. Originally from Leonessa is the tasty truffle, which is often proposed together with a typical cereal of the area, spelt, in two singular recipes, the spelt with Truffle and the soup of spelt. Finally, we should not forget a “classic” of the cuisine, the amatriciana sauce that draws its origins in Amatrice, a town in the province of Rieti on the slopes of Gran Sasso.

Created by the shepherds as a sauce for pasta, combining tomato with pork guanciale and pecorino cheese, the amatriciana sauce has long crossed national boundaries for a long time ago for also establish itself in international cuisine.