On Yabla there is an animated series featuring two maialini (piglets) who are brothers. In each short episode, the younger one, Piggeldy, always has a new question for his older brother, Federico.

Although Yabla has recorded new Italian narration, the original version of this animation was in German, and this is evident in a recent episode in particular. The primary hint is that one of the crops in the fields the brothers walk past or through is segale (rye). Italians, except in the northern parts of Italy where German is spoken, don't commonly eat a lot of rye bread, although it does exist and has become more popular in recent years. In countries such as Germany, Poland, Russia, and Austria, it's much more common, and rye is also cultivated there. But more importantly, the topic of the episode is erbaccia, a good word to know. 

In this episode, Piggeldy wants to know what erbaccia is.

"Federico, che cos'è l'erbaccia?"

"Federico, what is a weed?"

Caption 3, Piggeldy e Federico L'erbaccia

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Let's look at this word. We can detect the noun erba, which means "grass," but not only. As a collective noun erba does mean "grass," but as a countable noun, it means herb. We think of herbs and spices, but in Italian, erbe (in the plural, usually) refers to wild greens, either edible or medicinal. 

Some of us have already learned that the suffix -accio or -accia is pejorative, indicating a lower quality of something. So we could easily equate erbaccia with "crabgrass." Although crabgrass does have a botanical name and is technically a specific kind of grass, we do use "crabgrass" generically to describe a kind of creeping, invasive grass that's hard to get rid of. We could also call it "a weed" or "weeds," although weeds are not necessarily a kind of grass. 

E se no ci sarebbe stata tutta erbaccia, perché prima passava un pecoraro [pecoraio], Belardo se [si] chiamava, no? Nel settanta, co e passava co ste [queste] pecore, mangiava... era tutto pulito era na [una] bellezza.

And otherwise there would have been weeds all over, because before now a shepherd would pass by, Belardo was his name, right? In [nineteen] seventy, with, and he'd passed by with these sheep, they would eat... it was all tidy, it was beautiful.

Captions 53-56, Anna e Marika Trattoria Al Biondo Tevere - Part 3

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The -accio or -accia ending implies that the plant with this suffix is unwanted. Of course, one person's weed is another person's wildflower, or spontaneous plant.

The plant that Piggeldy sees, the cornflower, il fiordaliso in Italian, is a beautiful blue wildflower, considered by farmers to be a weed when we're talking about crops. It used to be a common sight in fields of wheat and corn. Its botanical name is Centaurea cyanus L.

In the real world, cornflowers got their name because they used to be a common weed in cultivated fields [of corn or wheat]. They're native to Europe, but while they can now be found distributed quite widely across the world, they're actually endangered in their native habitat by the mass use of weedkillers on European farms. In some parts of Austria, the fiordaliso is still visible as a beautiful contrast to the golden wheat.

As a little aside, if we then look at a recent episode of the series JAMS, there is a scene where a student is being questioned about the story of Achilles. It's interesting to note that the plant that healed his heel from the poisoned arrow is the cornflower!

So-called "weeds" are an important part of Italian rural culture. There are plenty of edible greens for the taking, and Italians are famous for making the most of them. Old folks remember well the times (such as during World War II) in which any cultivated green vegetable was hard to find, so foraging was the way to go. Even now, in Italy, if you see an abandoned field or a roadside, chances are you will see someone taking advantage of the free food there. There is always something edible coming up. 

Poi, conoscevo le erbe selvatiche no, e andavo per queste fiumare bellissime dove c'erano piantagioni di erbe spontanee, guarda, una cosa meravigliosa.

Besides, I knew about wild greens, right? And I would go to these beautiful streams, where there were patches of wild herbs, look, a marvelous thing.

Captions 40-42, In giro per l'Italia Pentidattilo - Part 2

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So the upshot is that erba does mean "grass," but erbaccia indicates weeds and erbe can mean "herbs" (for seasoning, often specified as erbe aromatiche — aromatic herbs) or "wild greens" (for eating).  Buon appetito!

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