“The brigidino is Lamporecchio and Lamporecchio is the brigidino.” It is also thanks to the local company Rinati if this has been possible, having made this delicacy with such a special taste known all over the world.
The idea of taking brigidino beyond the borders of this small town first to Florence, then to the rest of Italy came to a local entrepreneur. The latter felt that we could go beyond the dimension of street sales, since it was traditional for brigidini to be offered at village festivals and feasts, that is, to aim for a wider production distributed throughout the year.
Just as the Rinati company did, which since 1982 has represented, in the very area where brigidini were invented, the only entrepreneurial reality compared to the street vendors who still sell the product in bulk in typical stalls.
Claudio, the manager of the company, tells us about the origin of the brigidino. Legend has it that the nuns of the convent of San Baronto, devoted to St. Brigid (a Swedish nun who lived in the 14th century) produced these cookies, which moreover had the function of being used as hosts during mass. With the spread of this particular sweet in the town of Lamporecchio and the surrounding hills, many families in the area, mostly of peasant extraction, used to prepare brigidini to enjoy them in the warmth of the fireplace during the winter.
The simplicity of the ingredients (flour, sugar, egg) and processing (just two steps, namely kneading and shaping) made it possible to establish an inseparable link between this town in the heart of Tuscany and its famous product. That’s right: Lamporecchio is brigidino, brigidino is Lamporecchio.
