2023-05-30 07:13:49
A terrace on the sea. Not Caruso’s, but Luisa’s, or maybe Maria’s, busy rolling up raw fish and cooking side dishes while waiting for guests to welcome. Luisa and Maria do not exist, perhaps not with these names, but they are embodied in those coastal women who choose to make hospitality and food their mission. That is, the Cesarine di mare. Who perhaps do not exist, like Maria and Luisa, yet analyzing their stories one by one, whether they are islanders or perched on the red beaches of southern Sicily, one realizes that they have a fundamental importance. That of telling Italian delicacies, it will be said, like all Cesarine. Yes, but also and above all that of acting as a barrier to an increasingly standardized, uniforming and alienating average culture of fish products.
The Cesarines they are a widespread Slow Food community and at the dawn of Slow Fish they assume even more importance if you consider that in the average restaurant the same types of fish are always consumed: squid, octopus, mussels and farm products. Passionate work is the first outpost of culture. It is that of Gilda Failla, Cesarina of Syracuse. Employed in the bank by day, she worked and studied throughout Italy to then return to her island and give voice to her great passion: Sicily and her flavours. Which she promotes and defends with the simple gesture of home cooking.
“Work a lot with American tourists – he says – and I realize how much they are unaware of the real richness of the sea”. Each group that arrives at Gilda has an immersive experience, starting from the Ortigia market where they choose together the ingredients to prepare then in the cooking classes in the house by the sea. “Preparing swordfish rolls, or caponata (among the most requested dishes, ed) while looking at the sea has another impact, even an emotional one. A bond is created between them, me and the territory in which we meet, so much so that many continue to follow me after years”.
Maybe they come back, they always come back to where they had a good time. Like Annamaria, who moves to the island of Giglio every year from the Tuscan coast and opens “the house of the soul. Here I have been welcoming my guests for just over a year (her adventure as
Cesarina is recent, ed) on a terrace overlooking the sea, in good weather you can see Elba, Corsica and a breathtaking sunset. In my dinners and in my classes, I only propose the catch that my husband and I manage to collect every day in our sea raids. Fishing has always been my passion and in this way I am able to pass it on and give it meaning”. German tourists, mainly, or English who “rarely expect what they really find in my house”.
“For who as we work on the sea everything is very different, both in expectations and in reality. Not only because looking at the horizon in blue makes any thought or pain go away, but also because our guests can have a relationship with the territory that is impossible to have in the city. Despite the skill of the cooks” she says with an intense attitude Barbara Olcese, a moment after finishing a cooking class in Riomaggiore, the easternmost and southernmost of the Cinque Terre. She is lonely
work immersed in the vineyards of Sciacchetrà, the magical wine of this “so complex” coast. Working in my territory is very difficult, yet magical. This is what I try to tell my guests: what makes our wine special, why dry stone walls are born”, that the artisanal fishing of the Gulf of Noli “or the red prawns of the Ligurian Sea are different from any other technique or mollusc taste. And that cooking them is an act of love” that shouldn’t be done lightly. But with joy, just as each of them cooks every day and tells their story and that of our seas.
Recipe
Sicilian swordfish rolls (recipe by Gilda Failla)
Ingredients: 400g swordfish cut like carpaccio; 100g Ragusano caciocavallo diced; 40g grated Sicilian pecorino canestrato Dop; fresh parsley to taste; 5 dried tomatoes (optional); 120g of breadcrumbs; To taste Evo oil; To taste desalted capers; To taste Ground salt and pepper; 1 handful of pine nuts and extra virgin olive oil
Preparation:
Mix the breadcrumbs, Sicilian pecorino cheese, finely chopped parsley and capers, a pinch of salt and pepper in a bowl. Add extra virgin olive oil to obtain a soft but grainy dough. Taste and adjust salt. Chop the tomatoes and add them to the filling. Cut the caciocavallo (or provolone) into small cubes. Arrange the swordfish slices, put the filling and cheese cubes on top. Fold the long sides of the slices inwards, roll the slices up on themselves from the short side and form a bundle. Thread the roll onto a wooden toothpick and repeat for everyone. Grease the Messina-style swordfish cutlets with oil. Heat the lightly oiled grill and cook the rolls over low heat. When golden brown, turn them over and continue cooking. In all, 10 minutes, 5 per side.
#Cooking #sea #wisdom #Cesarine