Catalagna

Once again thank you for your supportive comments.

This is Catalogna or Pantarelle. A bitter chicory like veg you can eat raw or cooked. Raw with olive oil and a bit of lemon juice. Cooked with olive oil, a touch of chilli pepper and black olives.

I bought some today after a rather abortive Sunday food shop. Down the long hill to Caldine to the Coop only to learn from the grumpy paper seller that it is only open on the first Sunday of each month. I like these family friendly worker policies but it left me bemused, seeming neither fish nor foul. I'd forgotten my wallet anyway although I had cash enough for a Sunday chicken.

So. Back up and over the Fiesole hill for the wallet and then down into the edge of Florence for Esselunga, which was open until 2.00pm.

I saw the Catalogna (same as Catalunya/Catalonia) and was curious. I asked a silver-haired women if she knew how to prepare as she too was buying. She told me the above recipes.

I love Italy for that. Its distinctive produce, its very localised, certified products like the potatoes from Sila in Calabria grown at at 1200m or the  apples in the south that are picked and laid out on straw mats and turned by hand until they are red-around and have a delicious, crisp taste with a bit of Russet depth. The varieties of Parma ham, the different sorts of Pecorino, the talk of olive oil in Tuscany, of grissini (breadsticks) in Turin and on and on.

Catalunya is so in the news at the moment. I feel antagonistic to the independence movement. I know the central state of Spain has played a lousy hand. Was glad to hear of the big anti-independence rally in Barcelona today.