Chicken Cacciatore

Happy Chicken Cacciatore Day Everyone!!!!

You might now know it but there is a debate raging on the backstory of Chicken Cacciatore!

Commonly received wisdom will have you believing that Chicken Cacciatore or Hunter’s Chicken originated in Renaissance Italy.

The big problem with this theory is that there were no tomatoes in Renaissance Italy – they only came to Italy post the discovery of the New World!

Ah, but the…let’s call them the Old Worlders will tell you, “It was made without tomatoes back in the day”.

Possible.  But tomatoes seem to be fairly integral to the idea of Chicken Cacciatore.  Even this old recipe for it which doesn’t contain mushrooms or olives or any of the additions we see in modern Cacciatore contains tomatoes.  Two types!

 By the way, how adorable is this recipe?  The whole book is like this!  And where else have you read a recipe that mentions “wretched” little chicken wing or tells you to stir something with enthusiasm!

But, I’ve only told you one side of the debate.  The second theory of Chicken Cacciatore comes from Nikki Sengit from her amazing book, The Flavour Thesaurus. Her contention is that Chicken Cacciatore is about as Italian as Chicken Tikka Masala is Indian!

“Hunter’s Stew –  which is not, sadly, the invention of pockmarked Sicilian peasants, returning home with a brace of feral chickens slung over their waistcoats, but an English recipe from the 1950’s taught to nice girls by their mothers in the hope they’d bag the sort of chap who’d neither be too unadventurous nor too suspiciously cosmopolitan to object to a lightly herbed slop of chicken in tomato sauce”

Oh Nikki, so harsh!

Chicken Cacciatore is delicious!!!  At least this recipe, which is the one I used is!  I only took one photo so here it is again!

So, tell me which side of the debate do you land on? Renaissance or 1950’s.  Either way, buon appetito and have a great week!!!!