A Grain of Truth in the Italian Language

 

il farro 

the grain farro

“Pharoah?” I asked an Italian friend when I first heard the word. “You mean like King Tut?” 

She shook her head in disbelief. How could I not know farro (pronounced FAHR-ro) after so much time and so many meals in Italy? 

 As  she explained, farro is not just un cereale (a grain) but the mother of all grains, including rice, barley, wheat and rye. Wild farro, also called emmer, has been traced back to 17,000 B.C.; domestic varieties, to 7700 B.C. References to the plant appear in ancient Hebrew, Greek and Latin sources. 

A staple in Egypt and other Mediterranean civilizations, farro fed the Roman legions during their conquest of the known world. Ground into a paste and cooked into a polenta called plus, it sustained Rome's poor for centuries. 

Farro fell out of favor because the grain is difficult to grow and yields are often low. However, in recent decades French and Italian chefs in top-ranked restaurants began using it in hearty vegetable soups and other dishes. Rich in fiber, protein and B vitamins, farro provides health benefits that have made it increasingly popular worldwide. 

Farro's unique flavor, a cross between barley and wheat, makes a delicious hot soup when cooked in broth. You can drain it like pasta and toss it with roasted vegetables and perfectly salty ricotta salata cheese for a delicious salad. It is also terrific in farrotto, a traditional farro risotto. (You can find recipes from Executive Chef Gianluca Guglielmi of A.G. Ferrari at my website.) 

Italian grains give us something to chew about in other ways. Everyone, for instance, needs un grano di buon senso (a grain of common sense)—or at least un granello (a little grain or kernel). Piantare una grana (literally to plant a grain) means to make trouble or stir up a a fuss, while the troublemaker or nitpicker is called a piantagrane. If you try to pass off someone else’s work as your own, an Italian might protest, "Non è farina del tuo sacco" (This is not flour from your sack.) 

In English “dough” is slang for money; in Italian, you’d say la grana. You may have un sacco di grana (a sack of grain, or a lot of dough) or un sacco di grane(lots of troubles), depending on the gender.  “Fuori la grana!” (out with the grain) is the classic shout of a bank robber who wants the teller to turn over the dough.

Like wheat, farro can be made into farina (flour). But watch out for la farina del diavolo (the devil’s flour), which refers to anything acquired dishonestly. As an old Italian proverb reminds us, la farina del diavolo va tutto in crusca (the devil’s flour becomes all bran). In other words, nothing good comes from ill-gotten gains  -- or grains. 

Words and Expressions 

battere il grano -- to thresh grain 

granaio -- barn 

granelli di polvere -- dust specks 

sgranare -- to shell or remove from the pod 

Chi va ai al mulino s'infarina -- who goes to the mill gets flour on himself. 

 If you live in the San Francisco Bay area, please come to a presentation on “The Tastes and Sounds of Romance, Italian Style,” in collaboration with A.G.Ferrari Foods, at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, March 14, at the Museo Italo-Americano at Fort Mason in San Francisco.

Comments

[Martha]

Hi Dianne, I'll be there Sunday. I hope we'll have a few minutes to talk. I wanted to email you but I can't find your email address. If you read this before Sunday, please email me.

[Italian Notes]

Highly interesting and entertaining. I really must try Plus;-)

[Jann Huizenga]

There are some fantastic idioms here. Thanks, Dianne!
It's always those damn final letters in Italian that get me into trouble, and here are two idioms that sound so similar--un sacco di grana and un sacco di grane--yet are nearly opposite in meaning. Dio mio. (That farrotto looks deliziozo, by the way.)