Farinata (Genoa chickpea tart)

Farinata is one of the most representative dishes of Genoese street food. It is an ancient dish so popular that the Genoese give it a legend to remember one of the greatest achievements in the city’s history: the defeat of the Pisans in the Meloria battle (Pisa too was a Maritime Republic and it was a great rival of Genoa for the dominance over Corsica and Sardinia). The year was 1284. It is said that on the return from the battle the Genoese fleet encountered a storm. The bags of chickpea flour on board the ships overturned and the flour mixed with the sea water that swept the decks. After the storm the sailors, exhausted and hungry, recovered the batter and put it to dry in the sun. The next day they tasted it and discovered its goodness. When they got home, they refined the recipe baking it in wood ovens and, in defiance of the won enemy, they called it “the gold of Pisa”. A legend, certainly, because farinata dates back to Roman times and similar dishes – based on water and chickpea flour – are also typical of other Mediterranean regions: in Tuscany, in Pisa – in fact – you can eat cecina, in Livorno a cake of chickpeas, in Sardinia the fainé, in Sicily there are the famous panelleand in Provence a tart very similar to farinata and called socca. In short, the chickpea flour over the centuries has fed and conquered so many seafaring peoples!