A pasta that we dedicate to Frank Bruni of The New York Times.
Alla gricia, considered by many the antecedent to all’amatriciana and alla carbonara, is a pasta sauce from Rome made with three ingredients:
guanciale, pecorino romano and black pepper.
guanciale, pecorino romano and black pepper.
The New York Times journalist, Frank Bruni, said said that
Pasta alla Gricia could be the answer to everything.
Come into Sola Pasta Bar to see if you stand with this statement.
Pasta alla Gricia could be the answer to everything.
Come into Sola Pasta Bar to see if you stand with this statement.
The predominant theory points to the word gricio, a Roman term for bread-makers used in the 15th century. I Grici came to Rome from the Swiss Canton of Grisons, or Cantone de’ Grigioni in Italian. (The canton, in turn, takes its name from the Lega Grigia, or Grey League, one of three 14th-century leagues that formed the canton whose members were known for wearing simple clothing, grey in color). In Rome, the word griscium also referred to the uniform worn by members of the arte bianca, the bakers’ guild—specifically to the coat, also grey, they wore over their clothes to shield against flour. In time, the term gricio acquired a negative meaning, something akin to oaf, hick, or rube—a shabby man, in short. Bakers apparently had a reputation in Rome for being poor dressers, with or without their trademark griscium. They wore pants that hit above the ankle, an unforgivable fashion faux pas that gave rise to the Roman ‘er carzone a la gricia’ (I’m guessing ‘gricia pants’?) and the Neapolitan ‘zompafuossi’ pants, which must be what we’d call ‘highwaters’ in English.