The Quiet Strength of the Mountains

In the Hills Above Sulmona

Somewhere between Abruzzo’s Maiella massif and the Molise border, the air smells of stone and wood smoke. Fields ripple with lentils the colour of dusted bronze. In late summer, farmers pull the vines by hand and spread them to dry on sheets that glint in the sun. The wind takes what it wants; the rest becomes soup.

In this high country, life has never been about abundance — it’s about endurance. That’s where Laganelle con Lenticchie e Peperone Dolce was born: a humble, slow dish that whispers what Abruzzo and Molise know best — that strength doesn’t shout.

Laganelle are wide, rough ribbons of pasta, cut by hand, a descendant of the ancient laganum described by Horace in the 1st century BCE. Lentils, once considered the “poor man’s meat,” simmer slowly until they turn creamy but not collapsed. And then, at the last moment, a spoon of ground peperone dolce — sweet red pepper powder from the southern slopes — colors the entire pot like sunset over the hills.

There’s no flash here, no grand gesture. Just the quiet patience of water, grain, and time doing what they’ve always done.

History & Origins

Before there were tomatoes, before the word “pasta” even existed, there were lagane: wide sheets of dough made from wheat and water, cut and boiled or baked with pulses. Romans loved them. They called lentils lens culinaris — humble but sacred — and served them with olive oil and herbs in temples of health.

Centuries later, in the mountains of Abruzzo and Molise, that tradition never died; it just went rustic. Shepherds made laganelle with nothing but semola and spring water, drying them on cane mats. Lentils grew well in the thin, mineral soil where wheat struggled. Together they became a complete meal — protein from the legume, energy from the grain.

The addition of peperone dolce came much later, after chili peppers reached Europe in the 16th century. In Basilicata and Molise, farmers learned to dry sweet red peppers on rooftops and grind them into a fragrant powder. It brought color to poor tables and preserved a little of the sun for winter.

Today, the combination of laganelle, lentils, and sweet pepper still defines mountain cooking across both regions: modest, slow, and deeply human.

Ingredients & Local Produce

Every ingredient in this dish tells a story of survival.

Laganelle are cut from semola dough, sometimes enriched with an egg in wealthier houses. Their rough texture clings to sauce like sandstone grips moss.

Lentils come from small pockets of cultivation — Santo Stefano di Sessanio in Abruzzo, or Colfiorito just across the regional border — prized for their thin skins and earthy flavour.

Peperone dolce, the local sweet paprika, gives warmth without aggression. In Molise it’s made from peppers dried in the wind, ground in small mills that still smell of smoke.

Add olive oil, garlic, and a single bay leaf, and you have a dish that could feed both a hermit and a king.

Classic Recipe

(Serves 4)

Ingredients

For the pasta:

• 400 g semola rimacinata di grano duro
• 180–200 ml warm water
• Pinch of salt

For the sauce:

• 250 g dry lentils (Abruzzese or Castelluccio type)
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 1 carrot, diced
• 1 celery stick, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp peperone dolce (sweet paprika or ground dried red pepper)
• 1 small bay leaf
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Optional: a drizzle of tomato passata for color (regional variation)

Method

1. Prepare the lentils.
   Rinse lentils and place in a pot with onion, carrot, celery, garlic, bay leaf, and enough water to cover by 4–5 cm. Simmer gently 25–30 minutes until tender but not mushy. Salt only toward the end.
2. Make the pasta.
   Combine semola, salt, and warm water into a smooth dough. Rest 30 minutes. Roll to about 2 mm thick, dust with semola, and cut into broad ribbons about 1 cm wide. Spread on a floured board to dry slightly.
3. Assemble the dish.
   In a wide pan, heat olive oil and stir in the peperone dolce — just a few seconds, to release the perfume without burning it. Add a ladle of lentil broth to stop the cooking, then pour in the lentils and their vegetables. Simmer a few minutes to thicken.
4. Cook the pasta.
   Boil laganelle until al dente (2–3 minutes if fresh). Transfer to the lentil pan with a splash of cooking water. Toss gently until the sauce clings.
5. Serve.
   Finish with a drizzle of olive oil and cracked black pepper. No cheese needed; the lentils and pepper already provide depth.

The color should be terracotta, the texture velvety, and the flavour equal parts earth and sun.

Plant-Based Alternative

(Serves 4)

This dish is already vegetarian, but Abruzzese cooks often take it one step further — eliminating even the optional tomato and leaning entirely on olive oil, garlic, and spice.

Ingredients

• Same as above, plus one extra tablespoon olive oil and a handful of toasted walnuts or almonds to stir in at the end.

Method

1. Follow the classic recipe, omitting tomato.
2. Crush the nuts coarsely and stir through the finished pasta with the final drizzle of oil.
   They add crunch and a faint sweetness — the mountain’s quiet luxury.

Regional Variations & Modern Echoes

In Molise’s upper valleys, cooks add crumbled dried peppers on top for a crisp edge — the cousin of Basilicata’s peperoni cruschi. Around Sulmona, a spoon of tomato passata is allowed, softening the spice’s sharpness.

In coastal zones like Vasto, seafood occasionally sneaks in: a few mussels folded through the lentils for a fisherman’s Lent supper — half land, half sea.

Contemporary chefs, such as Cristina Bowerman (though Roman by birth, raised partly in Abruzzo), have reimagined laganelle as tasting-menu poetry: lentil purée beneath translucent ribbons of pasta brushed with sweet pepper oil. But at home, the dish refuses sophistication. It belongs to the wood stove and the enamel pot.

The Philosophy of the Dish

If Maccheroni alla Chitarra is a hymn of family, Laganelle con Lenticchie e Peperone Dolce is a meditation.
It teaches patience — that flavour doesn’t arrive when you demand it, but when you wait.

Each ingredient exists at its edge: lentils almost falling apart, pasta almost overdone, spice almost burnt — yet none crosses the line. The cook’s role is quiet management, not display.

In every spoonful lies Abruzzo’s worldview: humility as power, simplicity as endurance, and colour as gratitude.

Fun Facts & Cultural Notes

• The ancient poet Horace mentioned laganum as early as the 1st century BCE — making this one of Italy’s oldest pasta traditions.
• Lentils have long symbolized renewal and prosperity in Italy; they’re eaten on New Year’s Eve for good luck, their shape echoing coins.
• In Molise, elders still call this dish “pasta di San Giuseppe”, served on March 19th for the feast of the saint who protected workers and families.
• The sweet pepper powder used here is sometimes nicknamed “oro rosso” — “red gold” — because farmers once traded it by weight with neighboring villages.
• A saying from the Maiella goes: “Chi magna l’énte, campa cent’anne.” — “He who eats lentils lives a hundred years.”

How It’s Eaten & Remembered

This isn’t a Sunday feast dish; it’s a weekday salvation.
It bubbles slowly while laundry dries and mountain wind howls through chimneys. Children come in red-cheeked from the cold; bowls are ladled out, steaming, always too hot to eat.

Bread is served on the side not for appetite but for ritual — to clean the bowl, to finish every drop of scarlet broth. The last spoonful tastes of smoke, pepper, and warmth.

If there are leftovers, they’re reheated the next morning with a splash of water until the lentils collapse completely — a breakfast that tastes of survival.

Reflection / Closing

Laganelle con Lenticchie e Peperone Dolce is proof that beauty can hide in monotones — brown lentils, beige pasta, red dust. It asks for no decoration, no flourish.
It is the mountain in edible form: austere, slow, enduring, and deeply nourishing.

When the last bite is gone, only the faint warmth of the pepper remains — not heat, but memory. The kind that stays in your chest like a small, steady fire.