The piadina Romagnola or “piada” since ancient times has been baked on an earthenware dish that even the ancient Romans were probably familiar with: the baking pan. The secrets of creating a baking pan (once referred to by the terms “testo” or “tegghia”) have been jealously handed down from father to son for centuries; entire families have found sustenance from this activity, which had the stone village of Montetiffi as its center of production. This is how it went on until the early 1990s, when the last two pan makers in the Uso Valley closed store. A trade that was an art, which the Camilletti-Reali couple decided not to forget. Today the workshop is open and you can watch the various stages of production of the different sizes: larger for the fireplace or stove, smaller for gas stoves. The clay is still harvested by hand, in the veins of the Montetiffi area, as is the calcite ore (“merum” in dialect). The water is strictly spring water. Once collected, the clay is put to dry, sieved and sorted by hand. When the product is dry, it is crushed into a coarse powder and soaked in tubs. The resulting mixture is pulled onto marble planes. With treadle lathes, a board is overlaid with a dusting of ash, and with a handful of dough, shaping begins, thus obtaining the base (“e fundel”). Turning the lathe, with the movement of the hands the rim (“l’urel”) is created, after which the pan is refined by smoothing it.
The mold is left for an hour in the sun, then placed in the drying room for about two months, but every day the pans are turned over. Once dried, the pans are baked in a special wood-fired oven at a temperature of 700/800 degrees for 8/9 hours. Finally they are left to rest for a couple of days, during which time they are checked for cracks or fractures. The resulting product is a small masterpiece and a stamp is placed on it certifying its origin: “Teglie di Montetiffi.” The pans come back to life and bear witness to a craft that gathers the creative energy that comes from the earth. Equal in time the magic, equal in centuries the poetry.