It’s unlikely you will encounter Trenette alla Renaiola outside of Pisa, but it’s here to remind you of the diversity of pastas dishes available in Italy.
Trenette alla Renaiola was a simple pasta the hearty men plying the sand barges along the Arno typically prepared on board. In this case it’s a long, squiggly pasta type squirming in a condiment composed of turnip greens (cime di rape), herring, garlic, and a bit of tomato. The versions I’ve had are very, very green, as you see in the picture. It’s really a whole meal in itself.
The pasta you see here is not trenette, which is a flat pasta about he width of linguine. The restaurant substituted lasagnette on this occasion.
If you enjoy this dish in Pisa, and since it is a maritime dish, you would do well to saunter over to the Historic Ships Museum to learn about how things were transported in Roman times and later.