Piedmontese-Style Breaded Swiss Chard Stems

I have not been so excited for a veggie recipe in a long time.

“You know how Madri used to make these?” my mother asked during dinner the other night. Madri is how I called my grandmother, her mother.

It was our last dinner together before they’d return to Italy. As a side dish, that evening, we had boiled Swiss chard with olive oil, lemon, and Parmigiano; that’s how my mom remembered.

“She would remove the stems, scrape the rough part off with a knife, then bread it, and pan fry it.”

She told me this recipe is an old, easy, traditional one from Piemonte¹.

“I am going to make it for Substack,” I said. I have not been so excited for a veggie recipe in a long time, and there is nothing more fulfilling than discovering traditions, anecdotes I didn’t know about my family, their recipes, and the way they lived when, truly, you could not afford to waste food.