misticanza

Misticanza (or mesticanza) is a dialectal term from Lazio that means mixed greens, dressed with olive oil, salt, pepper, and vinegar. The base consists of vegetables gathered from the green fields of the Lazio countryside. First among them is field chicory, followed by crested lettuce (or prickly lettuce), hare's ear, rooster's crest, dandelion (or pisciacane or tarassaco), pimpinella, raponzoli (or rapenzoli), walnut herb (or St. Peter's herb), cipiccia (little lettuce or radicchiello), valerianella (sweet herb), papala (poppy plant), friar's cord, donkey's ear, and so on. Even today, misticanza can be easily found in small vegetable shops or, with a little experience, can be easily gathered in any field of the Roman countryside or the Cimini hills. To dress them, the simplest dressing is used, which is olive oil, salt, pepper, and wine vinegar, prepared according to the proper rules and with a little extra olive oil. Alongside this misticanza, in various vegetable shops, one often finds a misticanza made with fresh garden salads, which has as its aromatic base cultivated arugula (wild rocket or rucola), which some say is different from the wild variety (Diplotaxis erucoides), to which are added curly lettuce, carola, catalogna puntarelle, endive, radicchio, cutting chicory (or cicorione), friar's beard, fava bean sprouts, and so on.