wild onions/Italian cooking

Angelo Porcelli ang.por@aliceposta.it
Sun, 27 Feb 2005 07:09:33 PST
Oh, a topic on which I can write a bit !!

Lampascioni is Apulian slang, you won't be easily understood from other Italians, if they have never heard before. It's Muscari comosum or Leopoldia comosa now.
Yes, they are very appreciated here, but nowadays they are all cultivated bulbs, mainly imported from Morocco and Tunisie, so I would assume they also eat them.

They are prepared in several ways, but all start with the boiling of the bulbs, to remove the excess of bitterness (spelling right?). Then the bulbs can be served simply with olive oil and pepper, as a salad with bread and small tomatos (pomodorini). Alternatively, the boiled bulbs are squeezed and mixed with eggs and flour, grated cheese, parsley and fried all together.
Another way is boiled in water and vinegar, in the same way for eggplants/aubergines or artichokes and them stored in glass with olive oil.
There's no garlic flavour in them anyway, but rightly a mix of mushrooms with a touch of bitter, that is...lampascioni !

I have always wondered why and how people started to eat these bulbs, considering that they grow deep a foot ot more and the work to dig would be more expensive in terms of kcal that those earned by eating !!

Two ways ot say involves lampascioni too.
To indicate something hard and lenghty to reach we say " if you want lampascioni you have to dig ! "
Also it indicates anyone being tall and slim and a bit dull, we say " he's a lampascione" figuratively referring to flower.

enjoy
Angelo


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