Savoury pies are meals spread all over the world and their birth is probably attributed to the use of cooking the dishes in a shell of dough, originally made only with water and flour, to preserve them from the fire, like a sort of oven. At first the shell was therefore very hard and impossible to eat, only afterwards people began to add butter and eggs to the dough, thus creating different kind of shortcrust pastry and the most famous puff pastry.
The most famous of the savory pies is undoubtedly the quiche Lorraine, one of the most famous recipes of French cuisine. It is prepared with a base of shortcrust pastry filled with crème fraîche, bacon and a mixture of eggs and cream.
The dish originates from Lorraine, a long disputed border area between France and the German Empire, and it is from the German word kuchen (cake) that the French word quiche derives.
The story I want to tell you today, however, has nothing to do with savory pies, but it is something that came to my mind when I saw Violetta mashing potatoes.
In fact, I remember one afternoon when Bianca (Violetta’s mother) was cooking as usual, I think she was preparing gnocchi, and she was mashing a huge amount of potatoes that she collected in a large bowl. Francesca, who was perhaps three years old at the time, sat next to her with the declared intent of helping her grandmother. Bianca tried to entertain her by talking to her and at one point asked her to take something from the refrigerator, without getting any response. She then noticed that Francesca was focused on eating freshly mashed potatoes, with an absorbed expression. Bianca called her again, a little louder, and the only answer she got from Francesca was “e lassame magna’ le patate” (let me eat the potatoes).
And that’s how from that moment on, when someone in the family doesn’t want to be disturbed, they say “e lassame magna’ le patate “.
– The Stove
The Stove Diaries 