Where pici come from
Pici belong to the hills south of Siena — the Val d'Orcia, Montalcino, Montepulciano — and they are old. There is a fresco in an Etruscan tomb at Tarquinia that appears to show something very like them, which locals will tell you about at length and with confidence.
What is certain is that pici are poor food. No egg, because eggs were worth money and went to market. Just the cheapest flour, water from the tap, and the one thing every farmhouse had: time, and a pair of hands. That is the whole recipe, and it is why the shape survived — you can make it with nothing.
How they are rolled
You roll out a slab of dough about a centimetre thick, cut it into strips, and then work each strip under your flat palms from the middle outwards until it stretches into a long, thick strand. The verb is appiciare, and it is where the name comes from.
The mistake everyone makes at first is pressing too hard, which flattens the strand into a ribbon instead of rounding it. The second mistake is chasing perfection. Pici are supposed to be uneven — the fat bits and thin bits are the character of the dish, and a rough, slightly irregular surface holds sauce far better than a smooth extruded one ever will.
What to put on them
Four sauces earn the name. Aglione — a slow tomato and garlic sauce built on the enormous, mild Tuscan aglione garlic — is the definitive one; ask for pici all'aglione anywhere south of Siena. Ragù di cinghiale, wild boar, is the autumn version and the reason pici are thick enough to stand up to it.
Cacio e pepe works beautifully because the rough surface grabs the cheese, and pici alle briciole — toasted breadcrumbs, garlic, oil — is the oldest and poorest of them, and quietly one of the best things in Tuscan cooking. What you will not find on real pici is cream.
