Introduction

If you lean in and really listen to the Baron, you’d swear he was getting drunk. I’ve seen the transformation before, when textbook Italian starts to ebb into marble-mouthed dialect, the linguistic synapse of a storyteller traveling back in time. First it was only a word of dialect here and there as we discussed the dishes of his childhood, but the last hour has had me squinting and hanging onto his every word, the way you might really grip the steering wheel while driving through a really thick fog.

‘Before there was so little, so very, very little’, he says, he eyes beginning to tear. ‘We always had just enough but those in the community struggled in ways that I think would be difficult to really imagine today. Unless you know real hunger, I mean real, real hunger- and for years at time- I don’t think the food down here is readily obvious. At least not from outside looking in anyway.’

I pour myself some more wine and disagree with him, at least in theory. I run a cooking school here in the Salento and those that come love the food of the region, for its pure flavours, never needing any of the back story to access the dishes on their own merit. The Baron falls silent for a moment and cocks his head to the side and eats a forkful of his Cecamariti, the way you might half-heartedly attempt to study a picture of your own mother, trying to forget who she is.

‘It’s good’, he says. ‘But I don’t think I can really taste it without also tasting the doorway back.’ He smacks his lips and takes another bite, holding his head low, as if he were in church.

I’ve decided to start my blog about the food of the Salento with the Baron because I believe that you, the reader, believe that the traditional food of the South of Italy is still being made by the poor, the uneducated, the rural and those that many of us would be tempted to call ‘peasants’. ‘Every morning in Italy, all the little old ladies wake up and begin to make everything fresh from scratch’. 

The opposite is more often the truth.

Traditional food in Italy is the process of flip-flopping, where the real luxury today is finding the time to make things from scratch for those you love. Traditional food is being kept alive by those that know enough to love it, that understand that there is always something more to any dish, beyond a list of its ingredients.  And that was what was really happening inside the Baron's mouth as he chewed. 

lunedì 28 aprile 2008

Pesce al Cartuccio (Fish baked in Parchment).



Fish in Parchment

Again, this is a master recipe that will work with just about any fish, either whole, in steaks or fillets- even shellfish- providing you think of the paper as a non-magical cooking vessel: the paper will allow you to fudge it a bit, but it won’t atone for all your sins.

Also, get creative with the vegetables. Everything inside the ‘envelope’ needs to cook at the same speed, but you can overcompensate by par-boiling the heartier vegetables, such as carrots, snap peas, green beans, etc.


Parchment paper (not wax paper)
Fish, even-sized pieces.
Salt
Chilli peppers
Herbs
Oil
lemon
Perhaps vegetables, prepped according to cooking time.

Preheat oven to maximum temperature. Lay an arm’s length of parchment paper vertically on a work service in front of you, curl-side down (a drop of water will keep the paper from moving around). Drizzle a glug of oil as a barrier. Place vegetables if using, then fish on the lower half of the page, keeping in mind that the top half of the page will be the cover. Season accordingly, using chilli as if it were black pepper (very conservatively), another shot of oil, lemon, herbs, etc., anything at all that will infuse into the fish. Seal it a half moon using tiny, overlapping folds, sealing flush with a water glass if need be. Place on cookie sheet.

The so-called ‘Canadian rule’ dictates that a fish should cook ten minute for every inch of thickness at its thickest part, but I suggest a little longer as the air inside will have to come to temperature first. For an inch-think fillet, I’d look to check the fattest filet at around 18 minutes. As will all steamed fish, you’re looking to see the centre just start to move from translucent to opaque.

Wine depends on the richness of fish used. A subtle Mediterranean fish cries out for a bone-dry white, such as verdeca. Heavier fish, like mackerel seem cut out for a fruity but dry pink, such as a rosato from the Salento. See more recipes at www.awaitingtable.com.
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