Life in Abruzzo countryside required a wide knowledge of home-making procedures: women needed to know how to make almost any type of product they could be in need of…and they had to make it home! You will automatically think of food, like pasta, bread, sausages or prosciutto, but today we will speak about a different type of “recipe”.

A few days ago, nonna Emilia was in her old outdoor oven, stirring something inside her big cauldron…it felt like seeing a spell in the making: she was preparing home-made soap!

We wrote down the “recipe” and we decided to share it with all of you!

It takes a while (a long while!) to make soap, but there’s nothing better to remove stains! Summer sun and home-made soap can whiten almost any type of stain (even red wine!) and give new life to old, yellowed textiles.

The doses are big, because Abruzzo ladies usually made it once a year, but it’s a nice and very useful present to receive, so you can make it for the whole family and friends!

Recipe

1o litres of water

5 kilos of rendered fat (nonna uses pork fat)

1 kilo of caustic soda

Rosmary

Bay leaves

 

Method

Mix all ingredients together in a pot, put them on a cooker and stir for 3 hours

(nonna used garden herbs for her home-made soap but, if you want, you can add any essence you prefer, like lavender or jasmine etc.)

 

We hope you found this recipe useful and that you’ll try it home!

Send us photos of your home-made soap and we’ll publish them on our Facebook page (CLICK HERE)!

©Maple and Saffron