It is perhaps the oddest part of my job as the owner of a cooking school in Italy that I’m asked so often for the recipes for the food of the Salento by those that have never even been to the school (departing students receive all of our recipes, regardless of the time of the year of their visit).

I say ‘odd’ because so many dishes don’t really have recipes.

Take le rape ‘nfucate as an example: write down the recipe on the page, and the three lines that it takes to explain the dish seem wimpy, banal, even insulting to the reader.

It’s mostly because the same factors that make our readers want these recipes also render the recipes almost impossible to duplicate.

Wait: stay with me; I’ll explain.
IMG_8689

Anyone who has ever been to our little school has heard me fixate on differences between The New World and The Old World, and how little either place fully grasps the other’s attitude to food and wine (A wincingly, oversimplied version of the differences could be summed up like this: The New World contemplating the Old perceives (wrongly) that it just needs access to the recipes in order to have the Old World’s food: The Old World looking at the New, thinks that there is so little there in the food over there).

Le rape ‘nfucate are a perfect example of this concept.

IMG_8759_2

First of all, you have to find and understand the vegetable, which isn’t easy. Northern European English-speakers often refer to the vegetable as ‘Turnip tops’. To the Germans, they are brassica rapa sylvestris, the last part often causing amusement that I’m the one teaching the dish.  To North Americans, they are either ‘broccoli raab’, or ‘rapini’.  All of these, are of course, approximations. (In the Salento they are always plural, a tense I avoided as the subject of this essay, as the plural appears to be a very different word in English).

IMG_8739_2

Here is what an example of what a recipe would look like to make this dish here in Lecce.

Trim away the fibery bits, which are the longer stalks (expect to lose half of the overall volume). Wash well, soak in water. Brown a smashed garlic clove in a large pot. Drain rape (but not too well), toss in pot with garlic and olive oil, cover, steam until they wilt. Toss in a preserved chili pepper, or a dried one, and a shot of vinegar. Eat hot, or more often, at room temperature. To drink, negroamaro.

IMG_8751

What’s not included in the recipe are all of the cultural fixations of The New World with regards to food: how to make the vegetable available all year long, which large supermarkets carry it, how long can you keep it once you buy it, how long in advance can you cook it, does it have to be so wasteful, etc.  It doesn’t take much to see that the reality is that the dish speaks more of a lifestyle- the daily shopping, of eating locally, in season, simple foods, with no temptation to show the cook’s savvy by the guilding of the lilly, whatsoever.

IMG_8782_2

But come to Lecce and you’ll find us each winter, gathered around the table, bent over large plates of wilted, heady greens, with thick wedges of hand-torn bread placed directly on the table. No one will be talking about famous chefs, or food TV or wines measured out in 100 point scales. There will just be people and food, the first united through the second, eating slowly, near the source, together, as if it were the most natural thing in the entire world.

To our calendar

To our recent article in the LA Times

 

Recommended Posts

1 Comment

  1. Silvestro,
    Thanks again for a great email. I am commenting on an earlier piece you did last year on drinking wine. I loved the piece and have incorporated some of your suggestions into our enjoyment of wine. I thought you did a wonderful job of identifying the core issue: we love wine and food but it gets in the way of health and sobriety if not moderated. I find especially now that we are retired a great lunch desserves a great glass of wine as well as the evening meal hummm… We are doing our best but your thoughts on wine often come to mind, thanks for sharing them. All the best for 2013 for you and the school.
    Janet


Add a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *