Tag Archive for: Florence

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My Italian Food Trail: Peposo (don’t stint on the peppercorns)

Scuse, my Peposo is inautentico. It’s the chopped San Marzanos that are the culprits in this. Tomatoes hadn’t made their arrival from the New World when this famous Florentine beef stew first sprang to prominence  in the 15th century, promoted by Renaissance man incarnate Filippo Brunelleschi. This and the tiled dome of the city’s Cathedral are his lasting legacies.

In a week’s cooking schedule that began with the daring spice fusion of two Gurdeep Loyal dishes this Peposo was earmarked as a bowlful of Italian authenticity. And, yes, as I was preparing it UNESCO designated the whole of Italian cuisine as an intangible cultural heritage. 

Such recognition is never likely to address the tangle of Asian Second Generation food strands found across Leicester-born Gurdeep’s two cookbooks. I reviewed the latest, last summer, but it was from his debut, Mother Tongue, that I yoked together Curry Leaf, Lemongrass and Aleppo Pepper Chicken and Sambhar Sweet Potato Hasselbacks with Red Leicester. Neither was what you would call a shy, retiring dish.

Still there seemed to be some distant affinity with the work-in-progress Peposo. The Tuscans are reticent about spicing, just as they eschew salt in their bread, and beloved pasta dish Cacio e Pepe is rather subtle with the the Pepe. Not so Peperoso. Some recipes recommend insane amounts of black peppercorns giving  a real kick to a dish of markedly few ingredients – olive oil, red wine, garlic, salt and stewing beef. Note, no onions or herbs.

Nothing but shin beef will do – discuss

A purchase of two kilos of Belted Galloway shin beef on the bone from Littlewoods of Heaton Chapel was a kind of cart before the horse inspiration. The roasted bones had contributed molten bone marrow – a freezer staple for lubricating home-made burgers in the future – and helped make  a goodly quantity of beef stock, too. The chopped up beef was perfect for the long stewing required for the Peposo. 

It’s a stove-top, pan-off operation where the Chianti (a whole bottle for 800g of meat) evaporates and enriches it. Even richer with the two cans of quality tomatoes, which I stand by.

Two stalwart UK champions of Italian food, Jacob Kenedy (Bocca di Lupo) and the late, great Russell Norman (1965-2023) go big on tomatoes in their versions. I went with Russell’s because his Brutto: A (Simple) Florentine Cookbook (Ebury Press, £32) proved an invaluable companion during last year’s travel-writing expedition to to the city. In particular it introduced me to the challenging street food tripe, Lampredotto for Confidentials. And yes I am now a fan of that braised tripe from the cow’s fourth stomach, doused in salsa verde, on a bun.

You won’t find it on the menu of Norman’s Trattoria Brutto in London’s Smithfield, but Peposo’s usually an option. In the preamble to his recipe (included later) he describes it as “a dish of extremely deep flavours and comforting textures. But it’s not a preparation that can be rushed. You need at least four hours, preferably more, and – as with many Tuscan recipes – it is improved by leaving it overnight. I’d love to be able to say you can use an alternative cut if you can’t get hold of beef shin, but it really must be shin. And you must leave the fat on – do not be tempted to trim. Your butcher will always be able to provide shin, even if your supermarket can’t.

“Additionally, the wine element needs to be appropriately regional. Chianti or even a standard Sangiovese, will provide much better results than a cheap New World Merlot from a petrol station.’

I used Lidl’s standard Chianti Riserva, Corte Alle Mura. Fort £1.50 more they have a  Christmas special on, from the same 2019 vintage, Medici Riccardi for a couple of quid more.

Russell’s version is actually rather modest with its pepper input. As it melted together over the long stew I ground extra peppercorns (Kampot, of course) into it. The result was a tasty marvel, which I first served with Judion beans in a tomato and sage sauce, the next day with a creamy celeriac and apple mash. Accompanying it then, a Fontodi Chianti Riserva (a ste up from Lidl). Each time we scooped up the rich juices with slices of Todmorden-baked baguette Tuscan-style. In Florence they have a saying for it: ‘fare la scarpetta’, which translates as “to do the little shoe”

The spectacular Duomo
Vintage time in Prunetta

Brunelleschi and a Duomo built on peppery beef stew

The acknowledged birthplace of Peposo is in Impruneta on the Arno, 15 miles south of the centre of Florence, where the Chianti vineyards really start. At the end of September ‘Peposo Day’ is an important part of the town’s flamboyant Grape Festival with local cooks battling it out to produce the best version.

Why Impruneta? It’s all down to the terracotta industry that has been there since the  Middle Ages. Its furnaces baked the burnt-red roof tiles used in the construction of Florence’s Doumo. The workers exploited the front of the kilns to slow cook in orci (olive oil/grain jars)  poorer cuts of meat with pepper and wine for their daily repast. 

On his Impruneta visits the Duomo’s architect, Filippo Brunelleschi, became a  fan of this Peposo with its peppery kick and twigged how this slow food could become fast food for his work team high up in the scaffolding. 

It would save valuable minutes if they ate on the job rather than clambering down and back up each lunchtime, so he ordered the Peoposo to be transported by wagon to Florence in terracotta casseroles, then hauled up to scaffold canteens. Not sure if the abundant red wine also winched up was a good heath and safety idea…

A hands-on Russell Norman
Brunelleschi by his contemporary Masaccio

Peposo the Brutto way

Ingredients

100g lard (or butter if you’re afraid of lard)

800g beef shin, cut into small chunks

Flaky sea salt

1 bottle of Chianti or Sangiovese

2 cloves of garlic, finely sliced

2 tbsp black peppercorns

2 x 400g tins of chopped tomatoes

Black pepper

Sourdough bread, for serving

Method

Melt half the lard in a very large frying pan and sear the meat on all sides until nicely browned. Add a few pinches of salt during this process. You may need to fry in batches to avoid overcrowding the pan. If there is a dark residue at the bottom of the frying pan, deglaze with a splash of red wine. When all the shin is brown, transfer to a very large saucepan in which you have melted the remaining lard. Add the sliced garlic and the peppercorns, and stir for one minute. Now add the chopped tomatoes and the rest of the wine. Bring to the boil briefly, then reduce to a very low simmer.

For the next four hours, keep half an eye on your Peposo to make sure it’s not drying out too quickly. If it is, cover it, but the full bottle of wine should have been sufficient to keep it stew-like. After four hours, check the seasoning and adjust if necessary. The beef shin will have disintegrated somewhat and become stringy and soft. You can encourage this further with some hearty wooden-spoon action. If it hasn’t, leave it longer. Or you could let it cool and leave it covered overnight. Then give it another 30 minutes on a medium heat the next day.

Serve with hunks of sourdough or unsalted Tuscan bread.

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My Italian Food Trail: Lampredotto in Florence

RIP restaurateur Russell Norman, who has died at just 57. After walking away from his over-extended Polpo empire he re-emerged post-Covid with a fresh Italian venture, trading in one small plate concept (Venetian cicchetti) for another (Florentine trattoria staples) at Brutto in London’s Clerkenwell. Brutto means “ugly” as in “ugly but good”, brutto ma buono. Instagrammers, look away now.

Reviewing it for The Observer in 2021 Jay Rayner wrote: “There are drapes of linen over the lights and sweet red and white checked tablecloths. Just as he did for his cookbook about Venice, Norman spent a lot of time in Florence in preparation for this opening, alongside his head chef Oliver Diver.”

Happily Russell’s wife Julie and son Ollie will continue this solo comeback project from this genuine hospitality ground breaker (Polpo, his take on a traditional bacaró, was a laid-back revelation when it launched in 2009… two years before the San Carlo Group got in on the act with their own Cicchetti chain).

Russell Norman loved Italian produce
Brutto was a homage to tratttorie

But will 70 cover Brutto ever major in the great Florentine staple it promised to put on the  menu? Jay Rayner again: “I’ve come and gone from Florence many times over the years and I swooned when I learned the menu would include a crusty Lampredotto, or tripe roll of the sort they serve in the Central Market there. It is one of the world’s great sandwiches. They have had problems getting hold of the right tripe from the fourth stomach, but he promises it’s coming. The correct rolls have been commissioned.”

A stickler for authenticity, Russell had despaired of locating in London the exact kind of bread roll to encase the beige strewed tripe ‘elevated’ (sic) by the punch of salsa verde. Our recent visit to the cradle of the Renaissance had me swooning over this plebeian culinary work of art. The legendary lampredotto is not hard to find in a city whose markets bulge with tripe. Unlike the UK’s, where these days you’ll struggle to find even a tranche of honeycomb lurking in the chill cabinet.

Well-researched in all things edible Tuscan, Russell  has his own specific supply problems, as he revealed to one of those exhaustive Guardian long reads – a 2022 focus on the difficulties in opening a new restaurant after the Pandemic and Brexit. “The bread supplier was unable to offer a crusty white roll of the kind typically used in a sandwich stuffed with lampredotto; the lampredottoitself had to be shipped in from France. Except the French suppliers only sold it 20kg at time, so Brutto also had to buy a separate freezer, purely to store the vast slabs of offal.”

So what exactly is this difficult to recreate ‘offal holy grail’?

Russell again: “There are four stomachs to the cow, the feathery one, then the honeycomb one, then a third, bleached white tripe. The fourth and final stomach is the slightly brown lampredotto, the most tender and, it turns out, the most difficult to get hold of. Every UK butcher we’ve spoken to says our guys just throw it away.”

That’s never been the case in Florence in over 500 years of lampredotto as the ultimate ‘cibo da strada’ (street food). The name comes from lampreda, the Italian word for the eel-like ‘vampire fish’ the stomach is said to resemble in shape and colour.

The lamprey was a popular Florentine  treat in Renaissance times, up there with cibrèo, a stew of a stew of rooster testicles, crests and wattle so loved by Catherine de’ Medici she even tried, unsuccessfully, to export it to France when she became Queen. Even in the eponymous Cibrèo ristorante in the Sant’ Ambrogio neighbourhood this dish is near impossible to find these days, Not so the lampredotto. Our first encounter was close to the Sant’ Ambrogio produce market (where prices are cheaper than the Mercato Central mentioned by Rayner). 

Tripe, testicles and trotters at the Mercato Central
Abomasum is the fourth and final stomach

The slightly latrine-like smell of the stewing delicacy wafted across the cobbled square from Sergio Pollini’s traditional tripa van. Lampredotto is typically slow-cooked in a vegetable broth of tomato, onion, parsley, and celery, seasoned with herbs. When its is plucked from the cauldron for slicing it is an unappealing beige hue, but it is disguised by the spicy green salsa topping when encased in its crusty bread roll – the panino co i’ lampredotto – and I found it tender and moreish, in taste and texture not far from ox tongue..

The first chomp did take some courage, though. Superficially it resembles the street food of downtown Palermo in Sicily where, I admit, I gagged on specialities such ‘pane con la milza’ – gristly spleen in a similar bun.

Researching the fourth stomach (or to give its anatomical moniker, the abomasum) I was fascinated to discover it’s the source of rennet, the complex set of enzymes that helps separate curds and whey to create cheese, Further findings are more arcane. It is also fried and eaten with onions as part of the Korean dish Makchang Gui and features alongside chickpeas, onion, garlic and saffron in the Persian delicacy Sirabi-Shirdan (thanks, Wiki).

Alla Vecchia Bettola is hugely popular with locals
Da’ Vinattieri is my fave

A roam around the realm of lampredotto

Our first meal in Florence after a very early flight into Pisa was lunch at the legendary Alla Vecchia Bettola, one of the trattorie that inspired Russell Norman with its looks, atmosphere, food and giant Chianti fiascos. The menu offered Tuscan classics such as  ribollita, chestnut flour paat with a porcini sauce, bistecca alla fiorentina naturally, salsiccie con fagioli, stuffed rabbit, tripe, but you won’t find lampredotto. You have to seek out the stalls and sandwich shops scattered about the beautiful city. My favourite during our stay was undoubtedly Da’ Vinattieri, tucked away along the narrow Via Santa Margherita close to the Piazza Repubblica.

European food tour specialists Devour, who offer a three Sant’ Ambrogio exploration, also list on the blog the five best lampredotto outlets. Oh, and do remember Italians frown on snacking on the move. Prop up a counter with your treat; grab a tumbler of rough Sangiovese to accompany.

As Russell Norman’s Tratttoria Brutto has aspired to offer, this is democratic food. Let Saveur magazine have the last word: “That a cow’s stomach chamber can be morphed into a triumph of the culinary arts is a quintessentially Florentine phenomenon… In the same way that Dante argued for vernacular Italian to be accorded equal respect and literary legitimacy as Latin, Florence seems to have understood that expensive food isn’t necessarily better food.”

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