Can you come up with a recipe for pollo al mattone (using a brick). Also I'd appreciate any "Italian chicken folklore", if there is such an area, or poultry facts, preferably amusing. For instance, I've always noticed that chickens in Italy are much skinnier than the American variety, especially around the breast.

We have found versions of it from the Mugello in the west to the Etruscan coast in the east, but it's so good it pops up all over central Italy as a favorite on many restaurant menus.

ingredients

1 chicken, or pigeon or rabbit, herbs, a big brick, olive oil.

making it

Split a chicken into two (a dead and plucked one) and rub the exposed meat all over with Tuscan herbs (rosemary, garlic, sage, pepper etc).

Grill or barbecue it under a havy brick of at least 2kg (terracotta for Tuscany) so as to keep the meat flat and to ensure it cooks evenly.

Serve with lemon wedges and a sprinkling of olive oil and salt. Eat with a fairly recent Chianti Classico to hand.

To split the chicken, cut along the backbone with kitchen shears and open the carcass like a book.

Next, turn it bone-side down and crush it downwards with your hands on the breastbone.

Pull each of the legs hard until they pop out of their sockets, and then press hard down, flattening the chicken. The flatter the chicken the more even the cooking. Apparently, the same technique is also good for rabbits and pigeons.

This recipe is partly based on a version we found at www.divinacucina.com owned by Judy Witts Francini.