Pastiera is a Neapolitan dessert made with semolina wheat and cottage cheese. The crust is made with butter, flour, eggs, and sugar. The filling includes ricotta, cooked semolina, eggs, lemon juice, sugar, and various spices. It is associated with Easter and has pagan origins. A new version with custard is also available.
Pastiera is a classic dessert dish of Neapolitan cuisine (cuisine originally from Naples). It is sometimes called wheat cake or wheat cheesecake, as it uses some unusual ingredients in the filling, semolina wheat and cottage cheese. Like many Italian desserts, the result isn’t overly sweet, but the combination of flavors is considered by many to be exceptionally delicious.
While pastiera could be called a pie, it’s really more of a pie, made with a pastry crust. The crust is rich, usually a combination of butter or lard, flour, eggs, and sugar. Typically the dessert is baked in a springform pan, and the crust should be sturdy enough to pop off on its own once removed from the pan.
The pastiera filling represents a combination that may not be familiar to American palates. Ricotta, cooked semolina (cream of wheat can be used instead), eggs, lemon juice, butter, sugar, crystallized orange peel, citron, cinnamon and vanilla are mixed to create the typical filling. The grits should be allowed to cool before being mixed with the other ingredients, so the eggs won’t cook and the pastry crust won’t be heated. Generally, the top crust is latticed, which takes a little extra time to make, but creates an attractive appearance.
Although the pastiera is now more associated with Easter and may even be called Easter cake, food historians believe that the first versions were made to celebrate the pagan rites of spring, and in particular in honor of the goddess Ceres. Another legend associated with the pastiera was that it was created to celebrate the beautiful song of the siren, Partenope. She would emerge every spring and her music delighted the villagers. They created a dish to honor her lovely singing, one as sweet as her voice, or in alternative versions, Parthenope gave the pastiera ingredients to the God and Goddess of the sea and they created the Neapolitan dessert.
As Catholicism swept through Italy, many of the pagan rituals were reinvented and incorporated into Christian beliefs. Easter in particular, the celebration of Christ rising from the dead, is connected to earlier ideas of rebirth and renewal brought about by each spring. Thus the pastiera was still highly prized by Christians, although in its present form it may have been created closer to the 8th or 9th century by the nuns of the monastery and convent of San Gregorio Armeno.
A new version of pastiera, invented by Starace, combines most of the ingredients with a custard, which makes the filling lighter. You can find both versions in Italian ovens a few days before Easter. Letting the dessert sit for a few days for the flavors to develop more depth is considered traditional and highly desirable.
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