The cuisine of Corsica is the traditional cuisine of the island of Corsica. It is mainly based on the products of the island, and due to historical and geographical reasons, has much in common with Italian cuisine, and marginally with those of Nice and Provence.Schapira (1994) p. 1
History
The geographic conformation of Corsica, with its eastern coast (the one nearest to the continent) low, malaria-ridden, and impossible to defend, forced the population to settle in the mountains of the interior.Schapira (1994) p. 9 The agricultural products exported during antiquity reflect this situation: these were sheep, plus honey, wax and tar, produced by the widespread forests.Bertarelli (1929), p. 41 The island was famous for its cheap wines, exported to Rome.
The concentration of settlement in the interior, typical also of the nearby Sardinia, lasted until the beginning of the 20th century; in 1911, 73,000 people lived in the zone comprised between 700 and 1,000 m above sea level.Schapira (1994) p. 11
In the Middle Ages, more precisely during the 12th century, when Pisa was Corsica's hegemonic power, the large-scale immigration from nearby Tuscany brought to the island, together with the Tuscan language, customs and dishes typical of that Italian region. Later, when it was the turn of Genoa to dominate the island, a major shift in people's eating habits took place; the Genoese governor, with a decree signed on 28 August 1548, ordered that each landowner and tenant had to plant at least one chestnut, a mulberry, an olive, and a fig tree each year, under the fine of three for each tree not planted.Cahier, p. 9 The reason for this decree was to give means of subsistence to island populations. Still, at the beginning of the 17th century, the Genoese administrator Baliano wrote that the Corsicans were living on barley bread, vegetables, and pure water.Silvani (1991) p. 17
Other decrees were given on the same line, such as that issued in 1619, which ordered that 10 chestnut trees had to be planted every year by each landowner and tenant, with time changed radically the landscape of whole regions of the island, with the almost total substitution of cereals with chestnuts; one region, the Castagniccia, south of Bastia, got its name from its chestnut () forests.
In the 18th century, the chestnut had almost completely replaced cereals. Above all, chestnut plantations radically changed the diet of the islanders, preserving them from the recurrent famines. It was so common that the historian of Corsica Jakob Von Wittelieb wrote that in the 1730s travelers in the island brought with them a flask filled with wine and a pocket containing a chestnut bread or some roasted chestnuts.
An old Corsican proverb from upper Niolo asserts: (), referencing both the central place occupied by the chestnut in Corsica's alimentation and the frugality of Corsican mountaineers, obliged to drink water instead of wine.Cahier, p. 10
During the Corsican independence before the French annexation, Pasquale Paoli tried to enrich the diet of his countrymen encouraging the cultivation of the potato, so his political opponents ridiculed him, calling him .Silvani (1991) p. 15
The French annexation in 1768 brought at first a change in this situation; in an effort to subjugate rebellion, the French army proceeded to cut down many chestnut forests, and this policy continued also during the first years of peace, since Paris favoured cereals over chestnut as staple food. After a while, though, the cutting down of chestnut trees ended, so that until the beginning of 20th century, chestnut in the form of pancakes, bread, or porridge remained the staple food of the larger part of Corsican population. In addition to chestnuts, at the end of the 18th century, the staples of the Corsican diet were cereals (mainly wheat and rye), dried vegetables, and charcuterie.
There were also exceptions: from a testimony of 1775, during that year the owners of Cap Corse vineyards used the revenue from the sale of their wine to buy Italian pasta, goat meat and pork, and cod, and with those foodstuffs they ate all year round.Silvani (1991) p. 18 The poor of the same region instead worked in the vineyards in the spring till the harvest, but in winter, they fed on wild herb soups. A few during summer went to reap the corn in the malaria plain of Aleria, but often after that they lost their health or life.
For the most part, at the end of the 18th century eating was therefore eminently plant-based: the mayor of Stazzona, in Castagniccia, answering a questionnaire on the way of life drawn by the French authorities ("the questionnaire of the year X") mentions as basis of the diet of the village chestnut, of which he lists 12 different ways to treat it. He also writes that from November to June, only chestnut bread was consumed, and that the villagers owned vegetable gardens devoted exclusively to their feeding.Silvani (1991) p. 19 The monotony of this diet was broken eating trout and eels.
After the beginning of the 20th century, the autarchic village economy based mainly upon chestnut and other locally produced aliments as pork faded away for several reasons;Schapira (1994) p. 10 above all, the eradication of malaria after the Second World War allowed life along the east coast and accelerated the depopulation of the interior.
In 1990, only 20,000 people lived still in the zone between 700 and 1000 m above sea level.Schapira (1994) p. 11 These changes brought also an abandonment of the production of traditional food; while in 1796, 35,442 hectares were occupied by chestnuts woods, in 1977, chestnut forests still covered 25,000 hectares, but only 3,067 hectares were cultivated; the rest were left to the animals.Schapira & Schapira (1998) p. 12
This situation could be only partially reverted due to the demand of local food coming from the many tourists visiting the island and to the establishment of higher quality standards in food production, also due to the AOC and AOP origin designations.
Typical products
Chestnut
Large-scale cultivation of the chestnut tree was introduced in Corsica during the Genoese domination. Rich in calories, the fruits were plucked (without gloves) and dried, and placed on a wooden grating () above a fire () for one month: this fire, placed on a dry clay base 1 m2 in area and 20 cm thick, smokes also the charcuterie and heats the house.Schapira (1994) p. 12 After that, they were ground to produce chestnut flour, which gets an unmistakable smoke flavour from this process. The unplucked chestnuts are eaten by the pigs foraging in the forest. They are additionally fed with chestnut flour, so that their meat acquires a characteristic taste. Used to prepare polenta () and cakes, this flour was the basic staple food. The importance of chestnut in Corsican life can be seen from the fact that during a traditional wedding lunch taking place in 19th century Castagniccia, not less than 22 different courses were prepared using chestnuts as the main ingredient.Schapira (1994) p. 22 Today chestnut flour is a French AOC and a European AOP, under the name .Cahier, p. 1
At the end of 20th century, 85% (1,200 tonnes) of the chestnuts plucked in Corsica were ground into flour, uniquely among all the French departments. The 300 t of flour so obtained were consumed almost totally in Corsica, a small part was exported to mainland France and bought by Corsicans of the diaspora.
Chestnut and its products are the centrepiece of two yearly fairs in Corsica: in Bocognano, which takes place at the beginning of December and the occurring at Évisa at the end of November.
Cheese
Corsican traditional cheeses are exclusively made with sheep or goat milk. In the mid-1980s, the island raised 150,000 sheep and 20,000 goats.Schapira (1994) p. 14 The most important among them is Brocciu, a whey cheese akin to ricotta (but without lactose), produced for the most part with sheep milk, sometimes with goat milk. It can be consumed either fresh or aged, and is an ingredient of innumerable Corsican dishes, from first courses up to cakes. Brocciu is the only Corsican cheese to have received the AOC denomination so far. Other notable cheeses are the (from Niolo, the hearth of Corsica), the (from Balagne, the north-west region), the and (respectively from Bastelica and Sartène, in southern Corsica), and the of the Zicavo valley, also in the south. The ("rotten cheese") is a cheese containing insect larvae similar to the Sardinian . Corsican cheese producers meet each year in early May at the cheese fair () in Venaco.
Charcuterie
Corsican charcuterie is considered one of the best worldwideSchapira (1994) p. 11 due to the traditional production processes, and to the fact that Corsican pigs (), which live partly in the wild, are crossbred with wild boar () and are mainly fed with chestnuts and chestnut flour. Each peasant family has one or two pigs; these are castrated (sterilised if female) when they are two months old. When they are slaughtered, they are about 14 months old and weigh 200 kg.Schapira (1994) p. 51 This usually happens in December, before Christmas. The carcass is hung upside-down to let the blood drain, and is totally processed.Schapira (1994) p. 52 The same day as the slaughtering, dishes are prepared such as figatelli, boudin, and (similar to the Italian ). The intensive breeding takes place in the mountains, where the animals cannot disturb the cultures. Above all in the Castagniccia, Bastelica, upper Taravo, and Quenza regions, a pigherd () watches the pigs, which are free to search in the woods for chestnuts, roots, and small animals, but in the evening, they are fed with kitchen scraps and spoilt apples. Typical cold cuts are (ham);Schapira (1994) p. 54 (bacon); , one of the four pork's fillets, peppered, salted and smoked; (a sausage made with pork liver), and (also called ).Schapira (1994) p. 52 is smoked above the three or four days, then put to dry: it can be consumed roasted or grilled.Schapira (1994) p. 53 , and acquired in 2012 the AOC denomination.
Following the tradition of mainland France, in Corsica are prepared several pâtés () from pork liver (), thrush (), hare (), common blackbird (, now prohibited), wild boar ().Schapira (1994) p. 55-58
Olive oil Corsican olive oil is mainly produced in the hills of Balagne, the northwest region of the island, where a quarter of all olive trees on the island exist. Another important region for oil is the Alta Rocca, around Bonifacio: here in the village of Santa Lucia di Tallano, each year is celebrated the , a yearly fair devoted to the production of the new oil. As a whole, the olive groves cover in Corsica 2,000 hectares, divided among 300 producers. The olives, which are mostly black, are not plucked manually; they fall on nets lying under old trees, while those on young trees are plucked mechanically. The harvest occurs when they are ripe, between November and May. Since 2004, the Corsican oil is an AOC product, under the name , and successively it got also the AOP European denomination.
Olive trees in Corsica are under threat from Xylella fastidiosa, a disease spread by tiny sap-sucking insects known as leafhoppers, which in April 2018 was reported to have spread from Italy.
Wine