Piadinas

For those who have been on holiday on the Adriatic coast of Italy, a good piadina will bring back happy memories of sunny days, long sandy beaches and delicious local food.

The piadina is probably the most popular and widely recognised food tradition of the Romagna coast. It is street-food, a fragrant flatbread, found at the many coloured kiosks lining the coast between Rimini, Riccione and Gabicce.

Today, at local competitions on the Romagna coast, you can watch housewives in their pinafores preparing scrumptious piadinas. They are served with concoctions of soft cheeses and cured meats and folded over for a filling snack. They are made without yeast, and nowadays the traditional lard of that part of Italy is substituted with the olive oil more commonly used as a cooking fat in the south of the country, and that is why they have seen an explosion in popularity.

They’ll fill you up at lunchtime but won’t put you to sleep!