stracciatella

Stracciatella comes from stracciare (to tear, to rip), from an earlier form straccio (rag, tatter). The diminutive -ella makes it 'little rags' or 'little shreds.' The word entered food vocabulary because three different preparations involve tearing or shredding a soft substance into strands.

The oldest use is stracciatella alla romana — a soup from Rome in which beaten eggs mixed with Parmesan and semolina are poured into boiling broth. The eggs cook instantly and form ragged strands. It is Italian egg-drop soup, essentially. The second use is stracciatella di Andria, a fresh cheese from Puglia (Andria is a town in the province of Barletta-Andria-Trani). The cheese is made by pulling mozzarella curd into shreds and suspending them in cream. It is the filling inside burrata cheese.

The third use — stracciatella gelato — appeared in Bergamo in 1961 or 1962 at the La Marianna restaurant. The owners drizzled melted chocolate into a fior di latte (milk gelato) base while it was churning. The chocolate hardened into thin, irregular shards. They called it stracciatella because the chocolate looked like little rags. This is the version most people outside Italy encounter.

Three foods, one word, one concept: tearing. Egg strands in broth. Cheese shreds in cream. Chocolate shards in gelato. Italian names describe what happened to the ingredient, not what the ingredient is. The egg was torn. The cheese was torn. The chocolate was torn. Everything is rags.