The practice of “fare la scarpetta” is one of those Italian traditions that is lost in time. There seem to be two origins: one theory has it that bread is a metaphor for a shoe that “passing” on the plate picks up what it finds, in the same way therefore the piece of bread picks up the most delicious part of a plate.

The second story links the gesture of picking up food from the plate to the word “bootie,” meaning by this, a type of shoe that is light and flexible, alluding to the action of a person who is very hungry because he or she is poor.