Naples At Table

From Cosa Bolle in Pentola, my free newsletter:
Last summer I was contacted by Arthur Schwartz, who asked me to appear on the radio show that he hosts for WOR in New York. I was happy to accept and we chatted for about an hour, after which we agreed that we'd meet the next time he came to Italy. He stepped off a cruise ship in Livorno a couple of months later, we had a very pleasant walk about town, the high point of which was a delicious bowl of cacciucco, Livorno's fiery fish stew, at the Trattoria L'Antica Venezia (Via Dei Bagnetti 1, tel. 0586 887 353, closed Sundays). At the end of the meal Arthur handed me a copy of his book on Neapolitan cuisine, Naples at Table. Put simply, it's a delight; he first went to Naples in 1969 and has come to understand the cooking of Naples and Campania very well since then, with lively curiosity and an eye for detail that leads him to notice and remark on things a native Neapolitan might take for granted. For example, he discusses Pulcinella, the classic antihero of Neapolitan theater. And he discusses Neapolitan history as well, deftly weaving the modern and the ancient so that even those who think they know all about La Città Partenopea will come away enriched. The same care goes into his treatment of the recipes. La Genovese is a good example:

La Genovese

La Genovese is a Neapolitan mystery. This puree of onions flavored mainly with meat is considered one of the glories of the Neapolitan kitchen, a dish proudly held up as proof that there was original, even fine cooking in Naples before the tomato. And it is unknown in Genoa> Or anywhere else in Italy, unless a transplanted Neapolitan cook has introduced it to the neighborhood.

One story has it that, in the sixteenth century, Genovese merchants living in Naples, attending to their business (the cities always communicated and traded because they were and are still chief ports of the Mediterranean), had private chefs who made such a sauce. The merchants eventually went back to Genoa, but some of the chefs stayed behind, enchanted by their new-found paradise, Naples. They set up shops or stands selling food to the public, many of whom didn't have kitchens in their tiny, one-room apartments (called bassi). The sauce that was to become known as la Genovese was their specialty.

The only thing that's believable about this story is that there were Genovese merchants with private chefs. Certainly, frequently famine-stricken Naples of the sixteenth century, governed by Spanish viceroys, was not entirely an enchanting paradise. And cooking on the street had to be a big comedown from cooking for rich Genovese merchants. Perhaps the chefs were thrown out onto the street. Another version of the story has the chefs in a labor dispute with their employers. Another that the employers lost all their money and didn't take the chefs back home.

In any case, the first printed recipes for la Genovese are nothing like what the sauce is now. As late as 1837, Ippolito Cavalcanti gives a recipe in his Cucina casarinola co la lengua napolitana (Home Cooking in the Neapolitan Language) that is essentially a French glacede viande, a meat stock reduction. It was not an onion sauce yet. It does contain a French mirepoix, though -- equal amounts of diced onion, carrot, and celery to flavor the rich stock. Somewhere along the line, later in the nineteenth century, the mirepoix got out of whack. The onions took over. The carrots and celery became practically token in relation to the huge quantity of onions. The meat -- in Naples an expensive food and not a high quality one -- was reduced to the roll of flavoring the onions, not vice-versa. Often no beef at all was used, only scraps of salami and ham, a prosciutto rind or bone. Some people even began to make the sauce without any meat. Macaroni with a sauce of only onions, a finta Genovese (fake Genovese), became a fast-day dish. And still is. (See page 63 for a contemporary version).

As it is often made today, La Genovese is back to being a meat dish. In newly affluent Campania it is made with enough meat to serve the meat as a second course, sliced and dressed with a bit of the onion sauce. A green vegetable would accompany that. Peas are considered the best. The sauce, which tastes quite like the gravy from a Jewish-American pot roast, is really the main event, however. And it always goes on ziti or mezzani, a long tubular macaroni, a slightly larger version of bucatini that's often broken into three- to four-inch lengths or cut into shorter lengths in the factory. Napolitans would find penne acceptible, too.

La Genovese di Maria Russo

Maria Russo is a butcher and grocer in Castel Vulturno, the town on the sea at the mouth of the Vulturno River in the province of Caserta. Even though she has easy access to meat she sometimes makes her Genovese with only a tiny piece -- a half pound for this recipe with four pounds of onions -- bolstering the flavor with bullion cubes, as so many Italian home cooks do with so many dishes these days. If you want a piece of meat to serve as a second course, however, you'll need about one third pound of beef per person at the minimum, which is what I have specified.

Using water to cover the meat and onions, and not relying only on the meat's and onions' own juices to render a sauce, makes this a very old-fashioned method of making Genovese. Perhaps it is the oldest style, if some historians are correct in speculating that before all the onions were added, the sauce began as a French-type stock reduction, a meat extract or demi-glace. For that matter, the other theory is that it started as a French daube or stew, and this could be a point in its case, too.

There is one striking contemporary touch here, though: the tomato paste as a color enhancer. Tomato is a big no-no to traditionalists who love to point out that la Genovese predates the tomato.

2 pounds (aproximately) chuck roast, tied, or a chuck steak

4 pounds onions, halved through the root end and finely sliced, about 12 cups

1 medium carrot, finely sliced (about 1/2 cup)

1/2 a large, outside rib celery, finely chopped (about 1/4 cup)

2 teaspoons salt

2 rounded tablespoons finely cut parsley

1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram

8 cups water

1 cup dry white wine

Optional: 1 tablespoon tomato paste

Optional: 1/4 cup or more water

Freshly ground black pepper

For the pasta:

1 pound ziti or penne

Freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

Place the meat in a heavy-bottomed, 7- to 8-quart pot. Surround and cover the meat with the onions, carrot, celery, salt, parsley, marjoram, and 8 cups of water. Bring to a simmer and cook uncovered over medium-low heat, simmering gently but steadily, and stirring every so often. As the liquid reduces in the pot and the meat becomes exposed, make sure to turn the meat regularly -- every 20 minutes or so -- so that it cooks evenly.

After about three hours, most of the liquid should have evaporated, the onions should be almost creamy, and the meat should be tender. Even if the meat is not as tender as you would like, remove it and set it aside. It can be further tenderized when reheated.

Raise the heat under the onions and add the wine. Boil, stirring frequently, until the wine has evaporated, about 10 minutes. Then continue to boil, stirring frequently, even constantly, until the sauce has reduced and thickened so much that when it is stirred you can see the bottom of the pot for a second. This can take as long as 20 minutes. If desired for added color, stir in the tomato paste at this point and cook for another minute. (If, when reheating, the sauce seems too tight, stir in a little water to loosen it.) Season with plenty of freshly ground pepper. Correct the salt, if necessary.

Save about 1/2 cup of sauce for the meat. Serve the remaining sauce very hot on ziti and pass the pepper mill and Parmigiano Reggiano

The meat can be served as a separate, second course, with a little onion sauce, or refrigerated and eaten at another meal. If the meat did not become entirely tender during its cooking with the onions, slice it and layer it with spoons of the sauce in a baking casserole. Cover (with foil if necessary) and reheat in a 325-degree oven until heated through and almost fall-apart tender.

Serves six.

In summery, a book to cook from, but also to read, which will greatly enhance your understanding of one of Italy's great regional cuisines, and more. It's pretty too, with nice layout, and will therefore make a fine gift.

Practical details:

Naples at Table
By Arthur Schwartz
Harper Collins, ISBN 0-06-018261-X
436 pages, and more than 250 recipes

Looks Good! I'd like to see the Order Form.