The Man Who Ate Everything - Jeffrey Steingarten [133]
Victor joined us to help eat the sardines. Then he went to work on the cannocchie, arranging them in a flat, hinged rack that would go over the glowing charcoal. We moved to the south terrace adjoining the kitchen, where the Hazans have a wonderful grill made by a company in Rimini called Bartolini that supplies many of the best fish restaurants on the Adriatic. As Victor labored, we sat in the sun drinking wine and gazing over the rooftops of Venice, and when the cannocchie were done, we took them inside to the dining table and ate them with our hands, marveling at their sweetness, the pungency of the pepper marinade, and the charred bitterness of the shell.
My next eating lesson was convoked the following day at the restaurant Barbicani, where the syllabus included small whole squid, crispy from the grill, black gnocchi under a profoundly pink sauce made from four fish and four herbs, and grilled sole with a sauce the waiter made at the table by mashing the head and skin of the fish with olive oil and a touch of garlic and then pressing everything in a strainer to extract the juices. Marcella points out that unlike the French, Italian cooks rarely make a separate sauce for anything but pasta. Instead, they allow the main ingredient to create its own. Marcella considers Adriatic sole the world’s finest flatfish, far superior to what passes for sole in the United States, which is really flounder. Her favorite Atlantic fish is striped bass because of its compact texture and delicate taste.
After leaving the Hazans, I practiced my eating lessons as often as possible, and I will mention two other fish restaurants of high quality: the famous Corte Sconta, where I ate, on newsprint mats, uova di seppie and a perfect mixed grill of fish, and Osteria al Ponte del Diavolo on the island of Torcello, fifty minutes by water bus from Venice and open only for lunch except on Saturday. When you have eaten like this for several days and then stumble into a place that boils its crab and cannocchie several hours ahead of time, the contrast is excruciating.
Speaking of excruciating contrasts: high over the Atlantic on the trip back to New York, I began to suffer from Adriatic-seafood-deprivation syndrome, the symptoms of which are too hideous to relate.
Minutes after depositing my bags at home, I hailed a cab and toured the major fish stores of Manhattan, widely known as a great place to buy seafood. Twenty dollars in taxi fares later, I headed back home, dejected and empty-handed—the selection was narrow, the shrimp were frozen, the sole was flounder, the clams were huge, the scallops were larger, and the eels were dead.
When my depression lifted a few days later, I reviewed the sections of Marcella’s books that show you how to cook Atlantic seafood the Adriatic way, remembered what I had learned in Venice, and went on to concoct a reasonably authentic
Grigliata Mista di Mare
Mixed Grill of Shrimp, Eel, and Sardines
Each fish is handled differently and each is delicious. The sardines and shrimp are adapted from More Classic Italian Cooking and Marcella and Victor’s terrace. Marcella was not in a flaying mood when we cooked together and declined to skin an eel for me, but I watched two restaurant chefs grilling eel slowly over charcoal and tried it successfully at home.
You can use a little hibachi or a fancy barbecue, but the fuel should be hardwood charcoal, not briquettes, which are made from small particles of carbon glued together with distasteful chemicals and may contain resinous softwoods that make your food taste as though it were basted with turpentine. In each recipe, you arrange the fish in a flat, hinged rack; this prevents them from curling, allows you to turn them all at once, and leaves the skin undisturbed, at least until the last minute. Even if you use an oven broiler, the hinged rack is quite a help.
Throw a few bay leaves on the coals just before you grill the fish. Buy the best Italian extra-virgin olive oil you can find. Serves 6 as a main course.
Shrimp