Why Italians Love to Talk About Food (22 page)

 

The simplest version of such pie is the celebrated Ligurian focaccia. Sometimes it's made with onion, sometimes with cheese, but the fundamental ingredient is the local oil.

At the time when the tradition of preparing focaccia as a provision for seamen's voyages was developing in the wood-burning ovens of Genoa, olives were pressed locally and oil was abundant. Oil was the chief cargo transported, oozing out of the cracks of barrels stored at the port; though it may seem paradoxical, it cost less than flour. It was Genoa's main export, particularly to the neighboring regions of Italy, such as Piedmont or Lombardy, which produced other varieties of oil. Thus there was no reason for Ligurians to skimp on olive oil as they did on wheat flour, which was not a local product. Foccacias were made thin and flat, with little hollows so that the oil poured on top would collect in the depressions.

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Aside from flour and oil, the third essential element of the Genovese focaccia is the large crystals of salt sprinkled on top. Salt was always readily available in Liguria; indeed, it was one of the chief commodities in the city's ports. In the old Italian world, a passion for salty, savory foods was stronger than the passion for sweets. Salt was a sign of power. An intelligent man is said to have
sale in zucca
(common sense). Four-month-old babies who are beginning to be weaned are first given a savory gruel made of Parmesan cheese, spinach, and olive oil as a supplement; with this pap the babies grow like leavened dough (this has been personally verified). The
salario
(salary) in ancient Roman times was a quantity of salt given as compensation to soldiers and functionaries on the road (along with grain, oil, and wine); only subsequently was it replaced by monetary payment (which nonetheless has kept the name “salary” until this day). Via Salaria was the name of one of the main Roman roads. Even the terms
salsa
(sauce) and
salumi
(cured meats) are derived from
sale
. Salt is an indispensable ingredient of many typical national dishes:
baccalà
(dried salted cod), anchovies, herrings salted in barrels, and spicy pickled peppers.

The demand for salt in the Italian diet has always been high. For travelers, salt was useful both in its pure form and for preserving other products. Only thanks to pure salt, found in nature and used to season vegetables, were sailors, soldiers, and the conquerors of new lands able to contend with long distances. Those who lived along pilgrim routes tried to sell salt to the wayfarers: without it, it would not have been possible for them to continue their journey. And everyone needed salt and spices to preserve perishables.

Obviously, it is not only in Italy that salt is indispensable; it has always been so for everyone, everywhere. Nevertheless, people who consume greater quantities of meat absorb salt directly from it. The Mediterranean diet, based primarily on vegetable foods that are low in sodium, requires greater supplements of salt than the protein-rich cuisine of the north.

The history of the Mediterranean is filled with conflicts over salt. Venice, Genoa, and Pisa fought among themselves for monopoly over the exploitation of the salt marshes in Sardinia, Sicily, the Balearic Islands, and North Africa. In the first decade of the sixteenth century an armed conflict erupted between Pope Julius II and the Duke of Ferrara, Alfonso d'Este. The pope, who owned the salt marshes of Comacchio near Ravenna, was outraged when the duke, who possessed the salt marshes in neighboring Cervia, began selling salt in Lombardy and Piedmont at lower cost than the monopoly prices the pope had established. During the Middle Ages, the European
“salt route” passed right through Genoa, winding from Sicily (where the salt arrived by sea) toward France, Germany, and the interior of the continent, where it was transported overland, crossing the Apennines and the Alps. For the Genovese, therefore, salt was generally accessible, though they consumed it with relative frugality since they had to import it. But focaccia, in any case, was generously sprinkled with it.

Genovese focaccia has been made the same way since the Middle Ages. The dough is left to rise in the evening and at daybreak the focaccia comes out of the oven, ready for the fisherman about to set sail. Medieval “disciplines,” or provisions dictating rules and regulations for the preparation of authentic Genovese focaccias, have survived and are valid even today. The complete production cycle must not take less than eight hours. The focaccia must be composed of not less than 6 percent Ligurian extra-virgin olive oil; it must be soft on the inside but crisp on the outside, and must have a golden color that acquires a whitish hue in each depression.

Focaccias, along with chickpea flour flatbreads;
ciappe
, flatbreads made of fava bean flour; and
testaieu
, breads made of chestnut flour, are poor man's foods, but they accompany the most succulent gifts of the garden and vegetable plot and are transformed into a daily feast. The various types of focaccias are served with fresh greens, crisp vegetables, and cheese. They are eaten with artichokes, pumpkin, leeks, and cardoons.

Herbs and vegetables prevail. Renowned among vegetable garden specialties are artichokes, some downright
pinzuti
, stinging, others more easygoing (the famous purple one that grows in Albenga). Green salads, the main source of vitamins in spring, autumn, and summer, are unparalleled; their variations assume a new name at every turn, in every new village of Liguria, since everywhere you go there are different dialects. From antiquity to our day, each spring Ligurians have collected bunches of herbs with whimsical names. The bouquet includes taraxacum (dandelion,
dent de lion
, or piss-a-bed), nettle, poppy, early savoy cabbage, borage, chard, wild radicchio, chervil, burnet, sowthistle (
Sonchus oleraceu
, or
sciscerbuas
in the local dialect), common brighteyes (
Reichardia picroides
), and goldenfleece (
Urospermum dalechampii
, or
bell'ommo
, in dialect). At the beginning of spring, or even in late winter, it is customary to walk the fields of Liguria and gather all these herbs to flavor fritters (
frisceu
), to use in savory pies, and to make the filling for ravioli.

All the land that is not cultivated as vegetable gardens is covered with olive trees, some three hundred years old. The olive groves themselves are three thousand years old, and it is clear that they will remain where they are for many centuries to come.
Olive trees do not permit easy access: it is difficult, if not impossible, to use farm machinery for this work. Therefore the olives are picked by hand, and from them comes an olive oil that is among the most prized in Italy.

During olive harvesting season, the Ligurian hills are wrapped in orange or green nets that run from one tree to another to form an uninterrupted, endless hammock, on which the olives fall when shaken down. These nets are a modern invention that appeared only after World War II. In distant times the olives were knocked down and gathered from the ground by hand or picked directly from the tree. During the harvest months, everyone worked in the olive groves, with no exceptions. And the most skillful were the agile adolescents. The figure of one of these child harvesters (though of almonds, not olives) is portrayed in Simonetta Agnello Hornby's beautiful novel
La mennulara
(
The Almond Picker
), 2003. Today the nets make the job easier.

Olive oil is excellent for frying. In Genoa in particular
friggitorie
, or fried-food shops, are widespread: prawns and sliced octopus are cooked in boiling oil there, right in front of the customer. These premises have nothing in common with anonymous fast food. They are an epitome of exquisite pleasure available to those who are in a hurry and want a bite to eat along the way. In the market stalls under the arcades of the narrow
carruggi
(alleyways) there is a triumph of exclusive delicacies: fish and shellfish, zucchini, artichokes, spinach, and lettuce, all fried in batter. Sometimes (rarely) the ancient traditional ingredients can also be found among the assortment of ingredients for frying: tripe cut into little strips and
baccalà
(dried salted cod). On the first Sunday of September in all the streets of the town of Portovenere, in the province of La Spezia, octopus is fried in oil, amid music and various attractions.

The excellent Ligurian oil is also an essential ingredient for Genovese pesto, known throughout the world. Pesto was invented in order to preserve the basil that abounds on the Ligurian coast through summer, even into winter. Besides a great quantity of basil, pine nuts must also be crushed in a marble mortar, using a wooden pestle, or
pestello
(from which the sauce gets its name). The pine nuts can be extracted from pinecones that have fallen from trees growing along the side of the road close to home, or, more unconventionally, they may be purchased.

The other two ingredients for pesto are garlic and Sardinian pecorino cheese. Some would-be experts dare to assert that this cheese can be replaced with Parmesan. But it is clear to every ethnogastronomist that, historically, the cheese in Liguria could by no means have come from Parma, situated beyond impassable mountains, but only from Sardinia, a sister-region located on the same sea and excellently connected
to Genoa by ship transport. Sardinian pecorino is the accurate, authentic ingredient of true Ligurian pesto.

There is not much room for orchards in Liguria, but fruit-growing is practiced so intensively that fruit constitutes no less than 30 percent of the inhabitants' dietary allowance. The late-sixteenth-century physician Bartolomeo Paschetti, who moved from Verona to Genoa, complained: “My dear Genovese . . . Those who consume more fruit than other foods eat too great a quantity of it. Which condition many in your country and elsewhere incur by basing dinner and supper on fruits more than on other foods.”
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