Читать книгу A Long and Messy Business - Rowley Leigh - Страница 54

Cooking Stripped of Artifice

Acquacotta

I love shopping, cooking and eating with my friend

Filippo. He is a quietly spoken sort of chap whose

utterings, in a noisy household, are taken as absolute

wisdom. He is the most undemonstrative of Italians,

incapable of raising his voice or even waving his hands

in the air, yet it is not difficult to sense his pleasure or

displeasure. Despite my lack of Italian and his occasionally

faltering English, we get along very well. In the macelleria

he will distract the butcher with talk of local politics

while I scrutinise the meat. He will nod approvingly

when I instruct the butcher to cut us some ridiculously

extravagant veal chops, and purr with pleasure as we are

offered some titbit of lardo di Colonnata or salami to taste.

His tastes in food are both sophisticated and simple.

The last time I visited we debated the merits of three

different Pecorinos, because he has a passion for cheese.

Although not a native Roman, he adores – as do I – the

cuisine of his adopted city, whether it is the salty crunch

of a deep-fried artichoke, the bite of spaghetti cacio e pepe

or the vinegary rasp of puntarella dressed with anchovies.

However, Filippo’s life has taken a different turn. He

and his wife have built themselves a house up in the hills

of the Maremma and they drive up there almost every

weekend. We have had to extend our gastronomic

horizons. Although only just in Tuscany, the cuisine is

markedly different and more soft-edged than that of the

city. There is more bread, beans, steak, tomatoes and

prosciutto, and a lot more chicken liver crostini. Luckily,

the Pecorino Toscana passes muster. Yet Filippo and I

have now developed an obsession for a dish I had never

even heard of before, let alone tasted.

The beauty of acquacotta, as my friend sees it, is that it

is always different. One day it will be celery and tomatoes,

the next it will be cabbage and peas. A good cook will

make an acquacotta for every day of the year and never

repeat themselves. The translation of ‘cooked water’ is not

so far from the truth. There can certainly be no addition

of a stock, and only three or four vegetables at most. It

is a very simple dish and therein lies its appeal to me: it is

cooking stripped of artifice, and a careful hand is required

if it is not going to become rather ordinary.

81

March