Born from flour, iron, and fire: the piadina descends from unleavened bread prepared with various flours and cooked on hot plates. Its oldest traces date back to 1200 B.C. in the sites of Lombard pile dwellings.
The Etruscans prepared a cereal farinata and influenced the Romans, who began making “puls” with barley, then with spelt, then with wheat, until the piadina became a tradition in ancient Rome. In Roman times, there are numerous testimonies of the use of bread substitutes made with raw cereals and paired with different types of cheese.
The piada was also consumed in the Middle Ages: in the 1300s, during the plague year, it was prepared with dried legumes and acorns when the people of Romagna began using poorer cereals to avoid being taxed by nobles and landowners. During the Renaissance, while culinary artists invented refined dishes, the poor continued to eat piadina, which during famines was often prepared with bran or even poorer ingredients. In 1371, the piadina appears for the first time in a historical document: the Description of the Romagnola Province by Cardinal Angelico. The cardinal noted that among the taxes paid by the city of Modigliana (Forlì-Cesena) to the Apostolic Chamber, there were two “Piade.” Even today, it is imbued with the genuine Romagnola culture; its reliefs recall its territory, and its taste reminds one of the air of local beaches.
Between the 1800s and 1900s, the recipe began to take hold: passing through the rolling pin of history, the piadina arrived until the nineteenth century thanks to the people and farmers who handed it down in different regional versions. It returned to prominence in the twentieth century, prepared with soft wheat and corn flours, cooked on the griddle (“testo”), and filled with cured meats, grilled meats, vegetables, and cheeses. After World War II, the Piadina Romagnola began to spread both in the countryside and in the cities, no longer as a substitute for bread but as one of its most delicious alternatives. From the 1970s, alongside domestic consumption, numerous kiosks and workshops began to appear along the Riviera selling and producing the original handmade Piadina Romagnola.
Over the years, the Piadina Romagnola became an industrial product. The small artisanal workshop, whose success had been growing for decades, began to produce for an increasingly wide market, supplying Italian and foreign shops. In order to preserve the traditional recipe of the Piadina Romagnola, a series of components including entities and companies operating in the field of food production, located in the areas of Rimini, Forlì-Cesena, Ravenna, and Bologna up to the Sillaro river, established the Consortium for the Promotion and Protection of Piadina Romagnola IGP which, after years of work, obtained the IGP certification from the EU on October 24, 2014.
In short, the Piadina Romagnola has ancient origins and tells the story of the people and traditions of Romagna, the land located in the northeastern part of Italy, on the Adriatic coast. Born as humble food, over the centuries, it has become the emblem of the Romagnola territory, evolving its image from simple and rustic life into a widely consumed product. For a hundred years, the Piadina has been chosen as an alternative bread for everyday life.
Curiosities about Piadina
The piadina also appears in literature: it was celebrated as the “good bread of Romagna” by the great Italian poet Giovanni Pascoli, who described it, along with its recipe, in the presentation of his poem “La Piada” from 1900. In one of his famous compositions, the poet considers the piadina as ancient as humanity, defining it as “the national bread of Romagna” and celebrating the indissoluble bond between this type of food and this territory.
“Piada, pieda, pida, pié are the names by which the Romagnoli call the wheat or maize or mixed flour focaccia, which is the food of the poor; and it is kneaded without leavening; and it is cooked on a clay plate, called ‘testo,’ over the fire…”. In 1913, Maria Pascoli prepared the Piadina for her poet brother while, in the periodical Il Palustro, Antonio Sassi acclaimed the Piadina as the original Romagna bread. Even the twilight poet Moretti wrote his poetic version of the Piadina: “The Piada was the Piada: it was Bread / It rhythmically crumbled on the candid cutting board.”
But why is the piadina called so? The term Piada was actually officialized by the poet Giovanni Pascoli, who Italianized the word piè from the Romagnolo dialect. In 1920, he named “La Piê,” a poetry and culture magazine founded by the doctor and writer Aldo Spallicci for the recovery of the Romagnole dialect and traditions.
However, the first literary traces are found within Virgil’s Aeneid, VIII, where the Roman poet uses, for the first time, the Latin construction “exiguam orbem.”
The piadina is now widespread beyond the boundaries of Romagna, throughout Italy and even abroad, where we often find it under the name of “wrap.”
At Insalateria, you can also find numerous delicious and healthy variants: discover them all!
