Calia siciliana e calabrese : la vera ricetta antica e originale. Sai quando si mangiava e perché?

You've surely seen it at the beautiful and traditional village festivals. It's called calia, and it's simply toasted, crunchy chickpeas made the traditional way. Calia is common in Sicily and Calabria under the names Calia and Simenza. It is a PAT (Traditional Calabrian Agri-food Product) recognized by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Forestry, at the request of the Calabria Region. Toasted chickpeas are rich in vitamins A, B, C, E, and K, calcium, iron, phosphorus, magnesium, sodium, potassium, and zinc. Chickpeas are useful for controlling cholesterol and blood sugar levels, reducing the risk of diabetes. They are also an excellent diuretic, promoting the elimination of excess salts from the body. Roasted chickpeas, or Calabrian calia, date back to rural tradition. In the evening, housewives would place chickpeas under hot ashes or in the sand, and the next morning, men would put a handful in their pockets before heading to the fields for the harvest. This is street food, and today it can be purchased at many traditional village festivals. There are two very peculiar expressions regarding calia: Ta sparasti a calia, which means "you said something big." U cocciu da calia, which refers to a small child who does all sorts of things.