What Italian flatbread from Liguria is made with chickpea flour?

What Italian flatbread from Liguria is made with chickpea flour? The answer is farinata. It is a thin, unleavened Ligurian pancake made from chickpea flour, water, olive oil, and seasoning.

The batter is poured into a broad, shallow pan and baked at high heat, traditionally in an open oven using a tin-plated copper baking pan. The result is usually crisp around the edges and tender inside. Farinata is commonly seasoned with rosemary, black pepper, and sea salt, then cut into irregular slices and eaten as a snack or street food.

Farinata belongs to a wider family of chickpea-flour dishes around the western Mediterranean. In Nice it is called socca; in Tuscany it is often known as cecina or torta di ceci. Ligurian speakers may call it fainâ. Similar preparations also traveled with Italian migration to Argentina and Uruguay, where fainá is famously served alongside or on top of pizza.

It is often naturally vegan and gluten-free, but it is not the same as focaccia: farinata contains no wheat flour or yeast.