The Cooking and Cuisine of Liguria

[hathor]

So, that's what trofie look like! We made something similiar by wrapping the pasta around either a wheat stalk or an umbrella spoke. They are fun to make, but can take quite a bit of time.

Beautiful pesto. I like to serve it with cherry tomatoes too.

Ok, Ok, I'll try lettuce salad. I have no problem with wilted or braised lettuces, its just the soup thing that gave me pause....

[Shaya]

Beautiful pesto dish, Adam. I agree about the cheese, it does dilute the freshness of the herb. I always feel compelled to add it but from this day forward I will save it for the end!

[edited to give Adam the credit for his great pesto pasta!]

Klary, you seem to have embraced the region and in doing so you are getting the rest of us going!

Thanks to Klary for the inspiration, I used Marcella's fava bean smash to make a pizza bianco with some pleurotte mushrooms and anchovies tossed onto one side for my sweetie.

Edited May 10, 2006 by Shaya (log)

[Pontormo]

And now for the history, geography, and etc. post!

Although dominated by the sea, the actual level of fishing is quite low due to scarce fish resources and pollution. According to the people at www.pescedimenticato.it, there are 550 available species of fish in the Mediterranean, but only 50 are actually harvested due to lack of knowledge.  (This is somewhat off topic: but these people are promoting that we go in and eat everything? Seems a bit short-sighted to me.)

The fish varieties that do show up commonly on the Ligurian table are anchovies in all their varieties, baccala (salt cod), stoccafisso (air dryed cod) and the usual suspects: squid, cuttlefish, and octopus. Most meats, with the exception of veal, is less important, and for once, pork does not play a big role in the cuisine. What is important are vegetables and herbs, which are abundant in quantity and variety. Traditional herbs include basil, marjoram, borage, sage, parsley and rosemary.

The ever present anchovy is a chameleon, one day its served fresh, battered and fried, another day its prepared salted and finally, as has been done for centuries, preserved in oil.  Each way, the anchovy takes on different characteristics and uses.    Now here is something that needs to be researched: Salted anchovies were highly prized as was the salt itself.  In order to avoid paying a salt tax, the ‘arbanelle di acciughe’ would eat the salted anchovies and “once the traders had arrived at their destination so did the salt, tax free.” (quote from www.deliciousitaly.com/liguriandishes5.html).  What does that mean?? Were the arbanelle people or some sort of animal? How was the salt retrieved? I did a quick google but didn’t come up with much. Any historians care to comment…come on, Pontormo, this is right up your alley!

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Sorry, I missed this cry for help, but as Francesco's kind corrections regarding my attempt to crack Genoese dialect demonstrated, it sounds as if we might need Adam's expertise instead. This ain't my kind of history. I CAN tell you that medieval city-states (such as Siena and Florence) tried to lure their native-born sons back home to paint, sculpt or design towers ineptly by offering tax-free status...and that Siena's Campo is slanted since salt was stored below.

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All this pesto looks great! I can't believe the timing!! It's as if all of us in this regional project are as in sync with one another as the eGullet women who report their cravings on the PMS thread !

(It's off-topic, so I'll be brief: look for a posting soon about my East-Coast raised cardoons. And if ANYONE knows a new way to cook artichokes that we didn't do in April, I cry out for your help ! Send a PM! Thanks.)

[Pontormo]

P.S. A special WOW for that pizza, Shaya!

And Adam, I must say your wry description of your mortar betrays a bit too much about the kind of circles in which you exchange discourse.

[Kevin72]

Beautiful pesto dish, Kevin.  I agree about the cheese, it does dilute the freshness of the herb.  I always feel compelled to add it but from this day forward I will save it for the end!

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That was Adam who made the pesto. Quick rule of thumb: spectacularly arranged, mouthwatering photos=Adam. Fuzzy, off center, static shots with messy arrangements on the plate=me!

Great looking pizza; I love the arranged rows!

[mrbigjas]

wow, i wish i could take pics as well as y'all... well, and that my meals turned out as well. i don't, and there were some issues with this meal, but in the interest of honesty i'll put some of it up anyway.

so yeah, after a relatively meat-heavy weekend, i decided on a couple of vegetable dishes from liguria, all of which i found in the links on the first couple posts in this thread. here's the meal:

in the front there is linguine with pesto. nothing more to say about that; it was linguine with pesto. i love it, i'd eat it every day if i could. i blended it this time, to a really smooth puree, so there wasn't the texture in there that you get from a food processor. tasted good.

in the middle is a 'torta di asparagi' i found on that rusticocooking.com site. since it was the most interesting and successful of the three dishes tonight, here's another couple of pics:

i put the top crust on it because i had the dough. making it, i realized that the crust isn't as thin as it should be, although it's very thin--i get the impression from the site that it should be almost paper thin. it tasted good--this is a really easy dough to deal with. over the years spent cooking for two, i've developed a pretty good sense of scaling things down to cook for two without too many leftovers, but i overestimated the dough for this one.

in the back there is a dish which, if i'd taken a closeup, would qualify for the gallery of regrettable foods thread. it's from a cooking.com recipe (originally from the italian gourmet, whoever that book is by): 'genoese eggplant with eggs', in which you fry onions and eggplants in whole lot of olive oil, add tomatoes and cook for about 20 minutes till things break down some, and then take off the heat and mix with a beaten egg and herbs to make a sauce.

so yeah, speaking of inaccurate scaling, i used one more egg than i should have, and it was mostly sauce. tasted good, since it's just a kind of ragout of tomatoes and eggplant and onion bound with egg, after all, but boy was it saucy. and looked horrible.

anyway, this was a first step in a cuisine i'm not that familiar with, beyond focaccia and pesto. i bought some sage so i could make a fried herb recipe that was on one of the sites for an app, but i couldn't get to it with the other stuff. next time, maybe. also i have a bunch of chickpea flour, so i think i'll give farinata a try this month. actually i'm surprised no one has yet.

for some reason, i'm not getting a feel for the meat/seafood dishes of the region, and i'm not getting a sense of what makes up a meal in the same way as i kind of 'get' some other regional italian cuisines. so i'm not sure about figuring out a menu of sorts to make. i think i need to update my italian cookbook collection, and do some more reading....

edited for like the fourth time to provide this link, which is interesting, if nearly impossible to read because of its formatting and switching between english and modern and older italian.... anyone gonna make this:

Or let’s think of the cima (turnips) given the name genovese but used throughout Liguria and in the neighbouring areas: a stomach pouch of heifer stuffed with vegetables, ricotta cheese, pistachio, cheese, tongue and many other things, sewn and cooked in water or in the oven; a rich and tasty dish of an antique tradition, of which recipe is already found in the “Libro de arte culinaria” (Book of culinary art) by Maestro Martino whose work had many followers around the middle of the XV century.

ok really that's the last time i'm editing.

Edited May 10, 2006 by mrbigjas (log)

[Adam Balic]

So, that's what trofie look like!  We made something similiar by wrapping the pasta around either a wheat stalk or an umbrella spoke. They are fun to make, but can take quite a bit of time.

Beautiful pesto. I like to serve it with cherry tomatoes too.

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Well, this is what the now common dried form looks like, but the orginal fresh pasta was more like a small thin gnoccho with twisted ends. Colman Andrews has a good description of making them the traditioanl way. Bits of dough are rolled forward with the hand, which is held in some way that makes the one end of the pasta curl a little, then rolled back which completes the twist along the length and the other end. Sounds like sort of technically demanding task that looks easy once you have done it for decades, but near impossible for a novice.

edit "dried" not "fried" - idiot.

Edited May 10, 2006 by Adam Balic (log)

[Shaya]

Beautiful pesto dish, Kevin.  I agree about the cheese, it does dilute the freshness of the herb.   I always feel compelled to add it but from this day forward I will save it for the end!

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That was Adam who made the pesto. Quick rule of thumb: spectacularly arranged, mouthwatering photos=Adam. Fuzzy, off center, static shots with messy arrangements on the plate=me!

Great looking pizza; I love the arranged rows!

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Thanks for the kind words Kevin and Pontormo.

Kevin - I absolutely should have recognized that those photos were not in your typical stylistic form!

Mrbigjas, that tart looks really good. I don't see how much thinner that crust could be?

Edited May 10, 2006 by Shaya (log)

[hathor]

Shaya: your pizza looked beautifu! You could almost smell it!

Mrbigjas: really, how much thinner could your crust get?? Its looks just about perfect.

In case you hadn't guessed, I'm a little dough challenged...so I'm prone to dough envy... All in all, your meal sounds pretty Ligurian to me.

I want to dig around in my pasta books to see if I can find some visuals on the old-style trofie. Sounds like something that could be fun.

[hathor]

Last night was ‘moro’ night. I had the fava beans, the mint, but I want to serve it on those twisty trofie and I wanted Ligurian olive oil. Finding the trofie was no problem, but I certainly share Pontormo’s frustration with finding Ligurian olive oil, I’ve read more olive oil labels in the past 10 days than I care to admit to. Why is it, that the more ‘exclusive’ or ‘expensive’ the olive oil, the smaller and fainter the print on the label?? The only Ligurian oil I’ve found so far was truffle flavored and that’s not what I want. So, I went home with some really nice Sardinian oil, figuring that Liguria was once part of the Sardinian empire.

Moro is really good stuff. Maybe if fava beans were quicker and easier to deal with, this would be a more popular sauce. I served it alongside a small veal cutlet that I prepared “meuniere’ style….once again figuring that Napolean Bonaparte would have appreciated this combination when he was conquering Liguria. And even if M.Bonaparte never had the opportunity to taste this combination of flavors, I highly suggest it!

Maybe today I’ll find some fish that can be treated to a simple Ligurian preparation. This region is one of those that requires very high quality ingredients as the preparations are pretty simple, deceptively simple.

Just in case you were wondering if I actually shucked my favas.

And here is the moro:

[Adam Balic]

Article about pesto and basil by Colman Andrew's

[Pontormo]

That looks beautiful, Hathor! I'm happy all of you introduced me to maro, especially since fava beans will be available from a local farm a few weeks from now.

Look up a few posts regarding my surprising, triumphal success in finding the right olive oil. Cf. clues I mentioned since I am sure it's available there in NYC.

I made pesto along with the rest of you last night using Ligurian oil, sea salt (French, but can I assume a shared sea?), trenette (Abruzzi's understanding of the word, but dried pasta), Chinese pine nuts and FRESH GREEN GARLIC from the farmers's market, i.e. from the same Swiss vegan who sold me my first cardoons. Alas, I should have purchased Sardinian cheese, but had some Roman pecorino at home.

Normally, I use a combination of Parm Reg and Romano, olive oil and butter, for a richer sauce with lots of garlic.

This was a lot more delicate in taste. I am not sure I would have known the difference between Tuscan & Ligurian oils with all that basil and garlic. However, I did taste oils from my bottle of 365 Tunisian olive oil (processed in Italy) & the Ligurian one first. There is a decidedly spicier kick to the former, as if it were arugula/rucola whereas Liguria's oil was as mild as parsley. I hasten to add, NOT bland. Good.

Making pesto in the blender is messy, but I LOVE cleaning up afterwards.

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Interesting article from Saveur. Thanks. I am looking forward to basil grown outdoors.

Edited May 10, 2006 by Pontormo (log)

[Adam Balic]

Some more green Ligurian food from last year.

[Pontormo]

Two questions:

1) In the link to your beautifully made ravioli, is the fenugreek the green that resembles watercress to some degree? I've only seen the dried herb.

2) I'm planning on making the Rustico focaccia with spinach that calls for thin sheets of dough without any yeast or leavening agent whatsoever. (It's the first link I posted here, with lots of documentation.) This seems unusual to me; I've never been to Genoa. Has anyone made or had something like this?

[Adam Balic]

Two questions:

1) In the link to your beautifully made ravioli, is the fenugreek the green that resembles watercress to some degree?  I've only seen the dried herb.

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Not really, it is a legume and looks like this.

[mrbigjas]

Mrbigjas, that tart looks really good.  I don't see how much thinner that crust could be?

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Mrbigjas: really, how much thinner could your crust get?? Its looks just about perfect. 

In case you hadn't guessed, I'm a little dough challenged...so I'm prone to dough envy...  All in all, your meal sounds pretty Ligurian to me. 

thanks y'all. truth be told, from the descriptions i read, i was expecting the dough to be softer and thinner--really almost like a strudel or phyllo dough. it was good though.

i think a trip to italy is in order for me.

[Kevin72]

I can't remember where I saw the reference, but I read that fried ravioli are made in Liguria.  I'd assume that the frying occurs in the region's olive oil instead of a vat of lard.  However, Kevin or anyone else, do you know more?

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Didn't see if anyone answered this yet but I finally did some research. There's a dish in Plotkin's book that looks like fried ravioli, but I think the Ligurians refer to it as a foccaccia. And, yes, they are fried in olive oil.

That was some quest for olive oil! Last year I spent all day one Saturday looking for Ligurian oil as well to no avail.

Now, for those of you who do own cookbooks devoted to Ligurian cuisine, could you please tell me if you've found anything resembling hummus?  There seems to be a lot made with chickpea flour and chickpeas are in soups.  I ended up making a white bean puree to eat with focaccia later in the week, but I wondered....

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I haven't seen anything like hummus for Ligurian cooking. You have the dried fava spreads down south, but oddly, I don't recall anything with dried chickpeas . . .

i put the top crust on it because i had the dough.  making it, i realized that the crust isn't as thin as it should be, although it's very thin--i get the impression from the site that it should be almost paper thin. 

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I can't conceptualize liking this, but then I'm not a fan of cracker-crust pizza, either. Looks fine as it is.

for some reason, i'm not getting a feel for the meat/seafood dishes of the region, and i'm not getting a sense of what makes up a meal in the same way as i kind of 'get' some other regional italian cuisines.  so i'm not sure about figuring out a menu of sorts to make.  i think i need to update my italian cookbook collection, and do some more reading....

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Part of that is that Liguria is largely a vegetable based cuisine. The waters off the shore are not as rich in seafood as other areas. Too, as it is so steeply mountainous, it's hard to have pasturage for sheep, cows, or pigs, so alot of game and birds, and they use alot of cured meats from trade routes with Emilia Romagna and Tuscany. Huge tart and savory pie culture, as we've seen.

Finally, everything is sure looking green! Thread's going so fast again that I can't keep up. But I was really happy to see a famous Adam seafood meal earlier on!

[Pontormo]

Kevin: Thank you for all of your responses.

The reprieve from all those braised and roasted meats that began the year is something I am enjoying enormously. I am looking forward to more vegetable-based cuisines from Southern Italy once summer begins. The one thing that puzzles me about surveys of Ligurian cuisine is the fact that cookbooks mention how little seafood figures in such a coastal region, while at the same time featuring quite a few dishes such as Adam's gorgeous soup and Klary's beautiful bass. I am not sure I want to tackle salted cod, though.

As for the question about ravioli, I should have conducted a search before asking. Based on your comments, I found this very interesting series of relevant entries on Rubber Slippers in Italy. Scroll down to the Latte Dolce.

(I also hope Andrew Fenton is reading this thread. The discussion of panettone should amuse him.)

[Chufi]

Torta di Cipolla.

From the Plotkin book, only I used the dough recipe from the recipe mrbigjas linked to upthread, because I liked the look of that asparagus tart. i think teh dough isn't very different from Plotkin's exept it used milk as a binder, instead of water in Plotkin's recipe.

The filling is sweet onions, mashed potato, egg and parmesan. I had to restrain myself not to add anything else, like pancetta or herbs or whatever. But it was really good as it was.

on the plate with some non-Ligurian foodstuff

[Adam Balic]

  The one thing that puzzles me about surveys of Ligurian cuisine is the fact that cookbooks mention how little seafood figures in such a coastal region, while at the same time featuring quite a few dishes such as Adam's gorgeous soup and Klary's beautiful bass.  I am not sure I want to tackle salted cod, though.

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The waters around southern Liguria are famously poor in fish. No major rivers dumping nutrients etc. Having swam there, I can vouch for the anchovies. Nothing quite like swimming in a school of anchovies. From the cliff paths around Cinque Terra, you can see the anchovies being chased by preditory fish.

Another famous (but now restricted item) is the date shell. This looks like a date pit (duh), but actually lives inside rocks that it bores into. You eat them raw.

I think that tourism has increased the seafood consumption in restaurants (at least in decade that I have visited). People see the water and want to eat seafood, so I have seen the local fish van selling fish from the Indo-Pacific.

Edited May 10, 2006 by Adam Balic (log)

[NYC Mike]

I went on a mission today for my first pesto. Fairway has a good selection of Ligurian Olive Oil all decently priced( 6 different bottles/types/sizes). I settled on a first cold press, unfiltered liter for $18 that was wrapped in a gold foil. I was surprised at the price, my regular use evoo is no where near that price.

Pine nuts, basil (Ligurian basil may be out of reach for this excersise), cheese I was ready to go! Get home and as I am about to unpack I get a jackass brain freeze moment and BAMM the only bag that mattered shattered on the tile floor. I was crushed, but, not enough to forget to grab the bread and taste the oil! It was great, light and fruity, very aromatic, very fresh tasting. I call do-over for tomorrow.

I also found this site. Two ligurian oils for sale here, also inexpensive compared to oils i have seen. Why do you suppose the price is so low?

-Mike

[Kevin72]

Oh, man that sucks. That's got to be up there with losing a bottle of wine or spilling stock all over the floor. Ugh. Even worse is what a pain in the ass it is to clean up. I feel ya there.

[Pontormo]

I went on a mission today for my first pesto.  Fairway has a good selection of Ligurian Olive Oil all decently priced( 6 different bottles/types/sizes).  I settled on a first cold press, unfiltered liter for $18 that was wrapped in a gold foil. I was surprised at the price, my regular use evoo is no where near that price. 

I also found this site.  Two ligurian oils for sale here, also inexpensive compared to oils i have seen.  Why do you suppose the price is so low?

-Mike

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Low? Compared to what? My bottle from TJ Maxx was $17 for 3/4 of a liter, supposedly reduced from $26. Cf. fairly recent thread on olive oil under General Food Topics (?) regarding EVOO designations and the like.

[NYC Mike]

I went on a mission today for my first pesto.  Fairway has a good selection of Ligurian Olive Oil all decently priced( 6 different bottles/types/sizes).  I settled on a first cold press, unfiltered liter for $18 that was wrapped in a gold foil. I was surprised at the price, my regular use evoo is no where near that price. 

I also found this site.  Two ligurian oils for sale here, also inexpensive compared to oils i have seen.  Why do you suppose the price is so low?

-Mike

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Low? Compared to what? My bottle from TJ Maxx was $17 for 3/4 of a liter, supposedly reduced from $26. Cf. fairly recent thread on olive oil under General Food Topics (?) regarding EVOO designations and the like.

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hmm...maybe I am imagining its inexpensive to compensate for the floor waxing that just took place!

A trip to Murray's was so-so, found dried trofie which look smaller and tighter rolled to Adam's pic. Bummer was that they only carry crecenza during easter, I struck out at both fairway as well, the uptown one never even heard of it.

[Kevin72]

First meal in Liguria.

Focaccia with olives:

Chickpea soup with mushrooms:

To lift the earthy, base flavors in the chickpea soup I made a parsley "oil" with raw garlic in it as well. Pretty addictive stuff.