3547 Now it's time of crocette, fave and pecorino cheese!

May, beautiful month, especially in Le Marche. The 1st of may, out in the countryside, spots of people sitting for a pic-nic embellish the gentle hills of this region. But what they eat, in fact?
Simple: fave (broad beans), pecorino cheese and crocette.

Broad beans (raw, just the inside) and pecorino cheese isn't hard to explain, and typical of a broader area, that is the whole central Italy (Tuscany, Lazio, Umbria , Romagna and le Marche).

What about crocette? The "crocetta" is a murex: seafood, it looks like a shell, but very hard to clean. It takes half a day to clean 10 kilos of crocette, than you have to boil them, dress with tomato, wild fennel and serve it "in porchetta". Eating them is also funny, because you have to suck the crocetta in order to get the meat. Sometimes, after 20-30 crocette, people start to be dizziness!

This is really really typical of Ancona, so that there is a poet, called Nazarè, who wrote a poem about this seafood: how to cook it and how to eat it. You can find it in the link below, although it's written in the dialect from Ancona.

[url]http://www.anconanostra.com/vernaculo/poeti/ceriago/chiachiarata/crucete.htm[/url]

Category
Eat & Drink

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 05/05/2006 - 15:48

That is a lovely poem - I couldn't attempt to translate it into English, but I think I understood the meaning - and that to eat a crocette you must kiss it like your first love is very evocative, I am not surprised you become dizzy!!

I look forward to learning more about Le Marche from your messages.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 05/05/2006 - 17:06

Angelo are le crocette something like our cannocchie here in the north of the region?

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 05/07/2006 - 16:53

No, it's not like cannocchie, they are very very different. Cannocchia is squilla, it has a head, a body and so on, crocetta (plural: crocette) is a shell, like a snail.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 05/07/2006 - 16:54

[QUOTE=Relaxed]That is a lovely poem - I couldn't attempt to translate it into English, but I think I understood the meaning - and that to eat a crocette you must kiss it like your first love is very evocative, I am not surprised you become dizzy!![url]http://www.italymag.co.uk/forums/images/icons/icon10.gif[/url]
Talking

I look forward to learning more about Le Marche from your messages.[/QUOTE]

eh... but the best thing is to come to Le Marche, not just to read the messages! [url]http://www.italymag.co.uk/forums/images/icons/icon10.gif[/url]
Talking

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 05/07/2006 - 17:42

I have visited Le Marche - in fact the very best "antipasto completo al mare" which I have ever eaten I enjoyed in San Benedetto del Tronto, and it probably included crocette - but I didn't know just how emotional I should have been when enjoying this delicacy!

It is very good to have your enthusiastic input into this information!