Almost Italian

We first saw Chicken Scarpariello, chicken shoemaker’s style, in 1984, on the menu of a red sauce joint in the North End of Boston. A little Web surfing turned up Craig Claiborne’s article on the dish in The New York Times (April, 1971). In an Italian context, this combination appears to be unique to Italian-American cuisine and without a credible antecedent back in the old country.

Even so, nothing appeared especially mysterious… yet we knew of no other Italian dish that paired chicken and sausage. After what amounted to real sleuthing, we did find Pollo con Salsicie, Chicken with Sausages in a 1919 volume published in New York: The Italian Cookbook, The Art of Eating Well, compiled by Mrs. Maria Gentile. As culinary historians, we’ve learned that recipes rarely spring up fully developed overnight; rather, they evolve.

We and many other commentators on the development of an Italian-American cuisine have written about the early 20th century phenomenon of men designated as “stay-at-home” cooks. Italian men, leaving their families behind in Italy while they sought work in America, often banded together, either in tenements or work camps. Pooling resources to stretch their budgets, they would chose one man to shop and cook for the rest of them.

An Italian “fraternity cook” might never have learned the subtle applications of herbs and spices that would have been passed down from Nonna to granddaughter. Furthermore, in American mill towns populated by other ethnic groups, ingredients like dried oregano and fennel seed may have been difficult to acquire. Nonetheless, there were other devices a cook could use to give his meals the flavor of home. Even a piece of kielbasa or andouille would have had the tastes of pork, garlic, black pepper, and perhaps anise, that could approximate Italian seasoning. And if there were indeed an Italian butcher, well, there would have been Italian sausages laced with fennel seed and red pepper flakes.

While the Italian male cooks may have lacked kitchen finesse, they knew from back home that a tiny bit of pancetta or salami could flavorfully enrich an entire pot of beans. Sausage, fatty and seasoned, stood in—not only for the cooking fat of a cured pork product—but also for the spices and herbs used in the Mezzogiorno. It is ironic that meat, the most precious ingredient back in Italy, could have replaced what would have been the cheapest elements of a meal: the home-grown or foraged seasonings.

And it’s easy to comprehend how wine came into the dish. Even in America, those early chickens would have been tough birds that benefited from the tenderizing effect of a little vino. And vino was readily available, no matter what the immigrant’s financial condition. The pungent peppers, a New World fruit that had gone from South and Central America to the Mediterranean and back, were very likely home-pickled in vinegar, in an earthenware crock. The salt, acidity, and heat from the pickling liquid added yet another dimension to braised chicken already seasoned by sausages.

Various sources theorize about the origins of the name of the dish. Is it “shoemaker-style” because a cobbler might have eaten this dish or because the dish was “cobbled together” from ingredients common to a poor man’s larder? Pino Luongo suggests that the name is derived from scarpetta, a piece of bread that would have been used to soak up the wonderful sauce.

Most intriguing is a comment by the late Pierre Franey, writing about Shoemaker’s Chicken in The New York Times (1977).

We’ve found confirmation of this slang usage in The Urban Dictionary:

We feel differently: that the name implies a true compliment. Scarpariello, may well have been a testament to the resourcefulness of immigrant cooks who achieved such seductive flavor from so few ingredients.

Ingredients:

2 - 3 Tbs. Olive oil
4 Links Italian sausage
2 ½ — 3 Lb. Frying chicken cut into 8 pieces (or 8 chicken thighs, skin-on)
1 Medium yellow onion, finely diced
4 Cloves garlic, peeled, and sliced thinly
1 Cup dry white wine
2/3 Cup pickling liquid from the cherry peppers
6 to 8 hot cherry peppers, cored, seeded, and coarsely chopped
2 Tbs. Fresh oregano, finely chopped
4 Tbs. Flat-leaf Italian parsley, finely chopped
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
Juice and grated rind of 1 lemon
4 Tbs. Flat-leaf Italian parsley, finely chopped

Preparation:

Heat a large sauté pan over medium heat, then add just enough olive oil to cover the bottom. Add the sausages and sauté, regulating the heat to reduce spattering. Turn regularly until they’ve browned; about 8 minutes. Remove and reserve.

Add the chicken pieces to the sauté pan and cook, turning occasionally, until the pieces are golden brown all over; about 15 minutes. Remove the chicken pieces from the pan and reserve on a plate, covering them with aluminum foil.

Add the onions and garlic, and sauté until the onion has wilted.

Raise the heat to high, and add the wine. Boil for about 2 minutes, stirring with a wooden spoon to loosen any bits of chicken and sausage that have caramelized on the bottom of the pan.

Lower the heat to a simmer and add the pickling liquid, the cherry peppers, the oregano, and parsley. Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper as necessary. Simmer for four or five minutes to concentrate the sauce.

While the liquid is simmering, cut the sausages into rounds. Return the sausages and chicken to the pan, and allow to simmer for about 12 minutes.Stir in the lemon juice and rind and simmer for another minute or two.

To Serve:

Remove the chicken and sausage pieces to a platter, cover with the sauce and garnish with the parsley. Most neighborhood restaurants serve Chicken Scarpariello as main dish, without a “side order” of pasta; so follow their lead, but be sure to have plenty of good crusty bread on hand for diners to use for mopping up the sauce.

Serves four