Even though New Year’s has passed, no one forbids us from talking about lentils, right? 😊 Here they are, the lentils with tomato and rosemary that I prepared for the lunch on the first day of the year. That is, yesterday.

This tradition of lentils bringing money and needing to be eaten on New Year’s, I must say… didn’t exist in my house when I was a child! We always ate cotechino or zampone with mashed potatoes, and lentils weren’t a recurring food on our table. I’m referring to the whole year, not just the Christmas period.

Frankly, I can’t say if it was just at my house, my parents like lentils, so it couldn’t have been due to their lack of interest in this legume.
I lean more towards the thesis that here in our region, or rather in the families of my parents’ origins, lentils weren’t a traditional dish (while chickpeas were). My family, in terms of culinary traditions (farming on my father’s side and coastal on my mother’s side), always knew its stuff, so I have no doubt that the absence of lentils in my childhood has a specific reason certainly linked to the individual families. But perhaps, perhaps, also to this specific area of low Romagna between Riccione, Cattolica, and the surrounding hill territory. I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong, but that’s my idea (anyone who can enlighten me on the matter, feel free to contact me, an exchange of information would be appreciated).

The fact is that at some point, when I was already grown up, lentils appeared. And since I started cooking on my own, they have never been missing from the New Year’s table, eventually becoming frequent on everyday tables because we like them so much.

And then they have two gears over other legumes: one, they cook quickly, which is very important to me!! two, my kids love them!! 😄

Yesterday I cooked them like this, with tomato and onion and with rosemary. Rosemary, for me, fits well with the flavor of lentils. But I must say, my lentils are almost never the same, sometimes I make them without tomato, sometimes I add bacon or ham or speck, sometimes I make them spicy, sometimes not…

Yesterday this version aired, which can truly be said to be vegan: the lentils with tomato and rosemary with onion and slightly spicy.

☰ ☰ ☰

Do you like lentils? Here are more ideas! 👇👇👇