In all honesty, there are no recipes that can be said to derive specifically from the Jubilee celebrated in Rome every 25 years. When asked about the origins of the recipe for lamb alla giubilare, cooked in white wine and flavored with various herbs, AI admits that there are no historical documents that can link it to an actual Jubilee year –but it also explains that it is part and parcel of the Roman gastronomic tradition.
Jubilee cherries (cooked in sugar, liqueur, and cinnamon, great on ice cream) are vaguely associated with Pope Gregory the Great. The origin of crepes, on the other hand, is historically documented –and it has everything to do with pilgrims and Rome. This great dish, usually associated with French cuisine, was inspired by Pope Gelasius, who gave the order to use the simplest ingredients available (flour, eggs and milk) to feed the pilgrims arriving in Rome. Too bad the African Pope Gelasius died in 496, almost 900 years before his successor Boniface VIII (famous for a sumptuous timballo he never got to try, but which is made in his native town of Anagni) called for the first Jubilee in modern history.
This does not mean that we cannot speak of Jubilee gastronomy. Indeed, the Jubilee pilgrimage is grafted onto the broader, more nourishing and flavorful culinary tradition of the traditional pilgrimage to Rome. Originating in the Middle Ages to replace the pilgrimage to the Holy Land when it was no longer possible, pilgrimages to Rome and Santiago de Compostela have, over the centuries, built up an extremely rich and varied network of routes and recipes often labeled as “of the pilgrim” –pilgrim’s bread, pilgrim’s soup, et cetera. The most famous of these ancient Roman routes, still followed by tens of thousands of people, is the Via Francigena, which feeds on the landscapes of the Apennines and their traditional flavors.
The absence of Jubilee gastronomy in the strict sense is not bad news. On the contrary, it helps to understand the true sense of novelty that the Jubilee requires, according to biblical tradition. The jubilee is not a tourist event, nor a novelty in the life of the Church –as if reviving outdated rituals and practices. The Jubilee calls for something quite different: letting the land rest, the redistribution of wealth, the forgiveness of debts, and a year of mercy and reconciliation –as read in the book of Isaiah, at the beginning of chapter 61.
Medieval pilgrimage gastronomy is in perfect harmony with this theological and biblical framework. Ancient cookbooks present simple dishes, sometimes deliberately poor. Indeed, it is food fit for penitents: soup, omnipresent, is made with the seasonal vegetables found in the garden. These are often nourishing recipes, able to sustain the pilgrim’s journey. They remind us (especially today, when the aesthetics of food have become dominant on television and in social media) that food is first and foremost nourishment for the body –a body that needs to be taken care of wisely. Finally, it is food that is given freely: a small and tasty foretaste of a grace that cannot be bought, but only received as a gift.
In the strange madness of the Jubilee, where economic logic (even in the spiritual realm) and logistical concerns too often prevail, the absence of a specifically Jubilee gastronomy sounds like a blessing. Crossing the porta santa is an austere gesture that calls for conversion and justice, now more urgent than ever in a world torn by wars and divisions. It is not a time for lavish banquets.