I made this Italian soup the other day. It was made from stuff in our back yard. You see, Martha had planted arugula a few years ago. Arugula is a weed, so it’s spread itself all over the place. We used lots of it in the soup. We also have some scrawny potatoes sometimes, but used a couple from our local farmer. He doesn’t put all that poisonous crap in them that industrial potatoes have to add in order to keep the little buggers from forming “eyes” on their long journeys in trucks across the globe. We had some bread that was about to get used as a doorstop, it was that dried out—so we used that in the soup, too.
Now I’ve made it sound like we made a junk soup outta stuff lying around that the vermin hadn’t gotten to yet. That’s not entirely true. We sort of used a recipe from Marcella Hazan out of her fantastic cookbook called More Classic Italian Cooking. We use this cookbook a lot. Its been to Sardinia. Its spine is in worse shape than mine, and I’ve labored in little square holes in the ground as an archaeologist armed with a dental pick. You can see what’s left of the book in the picture below.
The soup we made is cucina povera at its best, this concoction of chopped potato, torn arugula and stale bread, all cooked in water. (Yes, water, no broth.) But the kicker is that great drizzle of olive oil you put on top of the soup as the bowl in front of you steams up your glasses. Even the poor had olive oil, mostly. They might have had to hit the social circuit, cut a bella figura, did somebody a few big favors, but they could get the oil, you betcha. And olive oil that’s made by someone with a satisfaction motive instead of a profit motive can bring a dish of such “found” ingredients alive. If you are stuck in America it’s likely you’ve never had decent olive oil from Italy.
You have to know someone. I don’t mean one of those corporate “persons” but a real human who makes olive oil from olives.
Anyway, I was thinking about this ingredient. I mean the soup is outrageously good, better by far than the sum of its profoundly ordinary parts. It seems to me that a lot of cucina povera is like that; there’s one simple ingredient that surprises you because you can’t quite figure out why the dish in front of you is so damned good.
Like real life, you can’t have strong arbitrary prejudices or hate surprises or you’ll end up like one of my dig directors, who swore each and every day that if she ever found a single sliver of anchovy in a dish I made for her she’d rip my testicles off and throw them over the fence to the dogs. One day I made her a pasta different from everyone else’s and she got curious—so much so that she dug a fork into my pasta and declared it “delicious,” demanding that I make her some pronto.
So I took some garlic, some oil, about three anchovies, a tablespoon of tomato paste, some parsley and some red pepper flakes and made her the sauce, tossing some spaghetti into it and giving it a flip or two. After presenting it to her she slurped it down, licked the plate clean…and then licked the pot clean.
“What’s in this?” she demanded.
“Well, if you must know…anchovies. Lots of anchovies. It’s the star of the dish,” I explained.
She began to retch. It was a sort of fake retching, which is less pleasant to watch than real retching.
“You, you, you’ve poisoned me,” she said, holding her throat.
Americans are funny people.
Another surprise ingredient Italians use in their simple cuisine are the little capers you find on plants that like to grow between rocks in southern Italy. One of the reasons you can’t get real Italian food at a joint like the Olive Garden is that American diners there found capers “too unexpected.”
What’s wrong with unexpected? TOO unexpected? What’s that?
Expect some unexpected ingredient when you encounter real Italian food. I know it sounds funny, but really, make eating a Zen experience. Just let the food happen. Don’t give me any of this, “it’s too unexpected” or “it’s too green” as Olive Garden diners speak of pesto.
Really. I’m warning you. A cook might do you some harm. Watch out especially if you have testicles and there are dogs nearby.
How can a food be “too green” anyway? I give up.
Here’s something to read: Olive Garden Struggles With Diners Afraid Of Capers, Pesto
AFRAID?