Those who have Calabrian origins have certainly tasted this dish many times. It’s a typical meal of Christmas holidays, but it is also delicious during the rest of the winter season.❄️
It is a ritual that has been repeated for generations (probably born in the nineteenth century) that tastes like family around the table, on holidays and other days. Soup alla Santé from Calabria region is one of them.
Zuppa alla Santé
🍲It is a winter recipe of the city of Cosenza, Calbria Region: the soup alla Santé.
It is a healthy dish, with many simple ingredients, but the preparation is quite long.
Ingredients
The broth – made with chicken meat, generally – is the master element; it softens and amalgamates the individual elements of the dish which are:
- caciocavallo cheese
- beef meatballs
- chicken shreds
- toasted bread in cubes
- cabbage
- extra virgin olive oil
- carrot – celery – onion – parsley – salt
Here is a recipe you can follow.
It is a peasant dish, which uses products from the garden, those from the farmyard, even good food scraps.
The touch of beef meatballs, however, adds richness: often in popular traditions, the idea of reserving something better for the holidays is very much felt. If the whole year is prepared frugally, during the holidays you reserve that little extra in order to celebrate the event in the best possible way, for example with meatballs in this Soup alla Santé.
French origins of the name
🇫🇷 Where does the term santé come from? In southern Italy, during the French influence on the Neapolitan court, many dishes served during the holidays adopted French names because:
- the cuisine of the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy was strongly influenced by France
- court cooks were often trained at the French school
- the French language also entered the gastronomic language
Other examples are ragù (from ragoût) that is a sauce for pasta and crochette (from croquette) of potatoes, nromally. Santé belongs to this family of gastronomic Frenchisms. Since in French santé means health, this may have been its meaning: a dish that is good for health because it is warm, restorative, nutritious.
After all, a hot soup in winter is always a panacea.
Cheers!
💡Claudia Zucca
Web Content Creator
Sono Matteo Marconi, la mia è una famiglia di agricoltori.
Sono cresciuto in un contesto di azienda agricola e mi sono addentrato sempre più in questo mondo fatto di cura e rispetto per la natura, cominciando fin dall’adolescenza a seguire le orme di mio padre, con i primi lavori in campagna.
La mia giornata? Sveglia all’alba per sfalciare l’erba negli oliveti e controllo attento delle mie piante che tratto con Spintor Fly, un insetticida biologico.
C’è poi la fase più faticosa ma anche la più attesa dell’anno: la raccolta delle olive in autunno, per ottenere l’olio extra vergine d’oliva di qualità superiore che produco e imbottiglio. In base al periodo dell’anno, mi occupo anche del fieno per i miei animali.
Sono giovane, ma totalmente coinvolto nelle attività dell’azienda di famiglia e il nome dell’olio che produco con passione (e orgoglio) ne è chiara dimostrazione: Azienda Agricola Marconi Matteo. Nel logo c’è solo la lettera M, iniziale del mio nome e del mio cognome, non per manie di protagonismo, ma perché ci metto davvero tutto Me stesso.
