La Baita , Rieti’s “Culinary Refuge”

If it weren’t for the eye-catching bright red and white umbrellas spread out over the outdoor tables surrounded by scarlet begonias, you might drive right past what seems to be a nondescript little shack just off the main road passing Rieti. But pull into the parking lot near the trucks of savy workers who know where to find good food – and head inside to taste hearty good flavors of the region of Latium.

You’ve found La Baita. “La Baita” – generally denoting a small wooden mountain refuge – is a refuge, but a culinary one: for those seeking uncomplicated simple goodness.

Bright red begonias flank the tables at La Baita

La Baita, a refuge of another sort – a culinary refuge

“We’re only doing this now for passione, “ red-cheeked smiling owner Dea – in bright red shirt and pants – told us as she sliced into the porchetta, spit-roasted suckling pig seasoned with wild fennel and rosemary. Dea slices with the ease and experise of a surgeon for after all, she’s had lots of practice: growing up in the tiny town nearby, Pie’ di Moggio (pop. 54 nowadays), as a young girl, she set her sites on becoming a butcher.
She cared little for school and at fourteen, she left her studies behind to apprentice to a butcher – and over fifty years later, she’s still slicing up the pork goodness. “Dea” means “goddess” and she’s certainly “the goddess of good meats” (especially pork)!

Dea, still slicing that porchetta!

On a recent visit, I asked her, “Any regrets?”. As she slipped the sliced porchetta onto a crusty roll, she answered, “if any, maybe that I could not continue my education. But I made sure our three children did: one studied law, the other is a pianist, the other – with two degrees – works for the health care system.” Enrico, her retired banker husband, flanks her in this little food shack (he works mornings, Dea handles early evening and cheery tattooed assistant young Chiara fills in the afternoons). The first morning we stopped at La Baita, Enrico was at the espresso machine behind the prosciutto, capocollo, salamis and cheeses piled on the counter, while Chiara made sandwiches for a group of hungry workman

Chiara – note that tattooed arm! – slices porchetta – and sausages ready for grilling nearby

Pino and Enrico talk about pigs and pork

The brightly-colored paper cut-outs tacked on the wall near the counter listed all the sandwich options – but how to decide? Porchetta? Grilled sausage? Grilled sausage with sheep’s milk cheese (pecorino)? Panino di prosciutto? Prosciutto sandwich with pecorino? Or how about marinated eggplants topping the porchetta or prosciutto or sausages? Or roasted peppers? Or wild chicory sautéed in olive oil and garlic? Or a spicy chili pepper sauce? Or…all of them? Or does mortadella, capocollo or salt-cured bacon tempt?

Your choice? Sausage, sausage and cheese, sausages with the works, prosciutto, mortadella or prosciutto and pecorino?

Chiara mounds vegetables onto the grilled sausage for La Baita sandwich specialty

Toppings for the sandwiches: eggplants, peppers, chicory

Prosciutto will be sliced for sandwiches

On our first visit to La Baita (which has become a favorite “culinary refuge” for us now, too), I took Signor Enrico’s suggestion for a lunchtime sandwich – and it’s now all I ever have at La Baita: grilled sausage topped with roasted peppers, marinated eggplants, a touch of chili pepper sauce and a paper-thin slice of pecorino cheese. Red wine on the side, logicamente.

“Anna, here’s your favorite!” Chiara tells me

My favorite: sausage sandwich with peppers and eggplants

Red wine is the perfect accompaniment to my favorite sandwich

One certainty: the pig reigns here at La Baita. “ Each year, we buy about eighty prosciutto (the salt-cured hams of the back legs) and eighty spalle (“shoulders”, i.e., the salt-cured hams of the forelegs) from local farmers,” Enrico told us on a recent visit as we munched our sandwiches, “But Dea’s not the butcher any longer.” Maybe not but the pork goodness still tempts.

Sandwiches ready for the workers who’ll drop in for lunch

On our most recent visit, we enjoyed our sandwiches out behind La Baita, where a little boy watched the family’s two donkeys grazing. Enrico reassured me: no, they’re not for butchering! As we left, Chiara called out to us,
“Come back this winter for our spicy pigs’ liver sausage!” Don’t worry, Chiara: we’ll be back before then.

A young La Baita customer visits the donkeys before his lunch

Read more about La Baita and our friends there
Read about a favorite food festival in Rieti, not far away.
Read about my favorite sandwich at La Baita
Read about a stop at La Baita enroute to L’Aquila