Bursting the beautiful south. Sophie Grigson savours Southern Italy’s Puglia, Basilicata and Calabria regions.
Exploding Tomatoes and Other Stories: The Food and Flavours of Southern Italy, by Sophie Grigson, published by Headline Home.
To our taste, recipe books by food writers are more satisfying than those by restaurant chefs, especially when writing about Italy where cooking is not just a means to sate the appetite but also, in equal parts, a cultural and social experience – an expression of pride and of pleasure, in creating and in sharing. Family recipes are passed down through generations and each dish has a story that is more than the sum of its ingredients.
In Exploding Tomatoes and Other Stories: The Food and Flavours of Southern Italy, her second book since she “packed herself into her small car to move to Puglia in the south of Italy,” Sophie Grigson’s enthusiasm for her new life shines through.
Her recipes and the stories behind them are vivid and alive without the distraction of overly ornate language that has become the brand of some food writers. Sophie’s style is real and authentic, mirroring the simplicity of the dishes she brings us from Italy’s southern regions of Puglia, Basilicata and Calabria. Recipes that speak for themselves without the need for superfluous seasoning.
Exploding Tomatoes and Other Stories is a collection of experiences, cultural observations, social history and insights that chart getting to grips with regional cuisine and adjusting to life in a new country, its language and its people.
When writing his masterpiece Il Regno di Napoli in Prospettiva over three centuries ago, the abbot, scholar and traveller Giovanni Battista Pacichelli observed the “very kind hearted” nature of the people of Puglia. A trait still evident to this day. As Sophie observes:
“It’s been more than four years now … Then I knew nobody; now I walk through the streets nodding to this and that acquaintance, stopping to chat for a moment with those I know better.”
Not only has this enriched her culinary voyage, but it has also lightened her domestic burden. Everyone needs a neighbour like Downstairs Maria, who generously shares her cookery know-how with Sophie and “frequently sweeps my front step after she gives hers its essential daily clean.”
The pitfalls of learning a foreign language go beyond Sophie’s embarrassment at telling a new mother she is feeling horny at the thought of seeing her newborn child. More technical differences are also to be navigated when ordering pizza with hard grated cheese (grana) to avoid a topping of cooked wheat berries (grano).
Sophie doesn’t just bring us a romanticised version of Puglia but an authentic one:
“There are still guides and guidebooks that tell Puglia’s visitors not to bother with Taranto … In recent history, Taranto has been hit by bankruptcy and by debilitating pollution from the steel works and other factories. The handsome old town is crumbling, cats slink through its shadows, fishermen sell their wares on the harbourside.”
Yet, as with us, Taranto excites Sophie with its seafood offerings, “where a bowl of pasta with mussels costs just a few euros,” a place where “food matters”.
Sophie captures the essence of our region’s cuisine, recognising that simplicity is king.
“This simplest of recipes is indisputably the ultimate way to eat fresh anchovies,” she explains, as she introduces us to preserved salted, fresh and marinated versions that “make a massive difference to much simple food”. Even the titular exploding tomatoes are “one of the simplest recipes in this book and one of the tastiest things I’ve eaten in a long time.”
In Italy, food is something that everyone has an opinion on. From town to town and from family to family, endless debates ensue over even the simplest of recipes. Should the aubergine in parmigiana be battered before frying? Should the layers include prosciutto cotto? As endless as the dishes are delicious whichever way they are made, these differences of opinion are never resolved.
Leaving us in no doubt that Sophie has acclimatised to her adopted home.
On matching pasta shapes with the sauces that best go with them, Sophie is less fussy than the average Italian who, she notes, “will have firm and immovable opinions on which shape goes best with which sauce.” But when it comes to spaghetti all’assassina she has mixed feelings. It is “sometimes topped with a soothing little burrata or some other natty variation. I’m ambivalent about these and I’m not the only one; to protect the purity of the original, a group of Barese have created their own Academia dell’Assassina, which assesses and grades the offerings from restaurants throughout the city.”
(Our home-cooked version of Bari’s killer’s spaghetti is finished with some smoked burrata. Not to counter its heat, but to compliment the smokiness of the charred spaghetti. In truth we haven’t yet come across a blow-your-socks-off fiery assassina. It is only when we make a Barese-Calabrese cross-over assassina with ‘nduja that the chilli-heat levels start to soar!)
Matters of opinion and personal taste aside, when it comes to preparation and cooking Sophie’s advice is to be heeded. There really is a big difference between a plate of orecchiette alle cime di rapa that is cooked using “totally, utterly, squeakily fresh” cime di rapa, and one that is not.
Sophie’s insight doesn’t end with her adopted home region: “If burrata is Puglia’s gift to the world, ‘nduja Calabria’s, then peperoni cruschi are Basilicata’s, though the world hasn’t caught on yet.” Inspiration, we think, for a three-way crossover ‘nduja spaghetti all’assassina finished with a sprinkle of peperoni cruschi over smoked burrata!
Sophie’s writing is the gift that keeps on giving. There are new discoveries: this will be our summer of fig-leaf ice-cream (and fig-leaf oil).
Like the food and the people of Puglia, Exploding Tomatoes and Other Stories is generous, packing in almost 100 recipes over a delicious 300 pages.
Exploding Tomatoes and Other Stories: The Food and Flavours of Southern Italy, by Sophie Grigson, is published by Headline Home on 4 July 2024. Sophie Grigson’s award-winning TV series Slice of Italy airs on the Food Network UK.
Photo credits: Sophie Grigson at the Trullo Tre Mondi, showing the cooked Brasciole in tomato sauce with the fresh tomato sauce in a bowl. © Warner Bros. Discovery. Sophie Grigson Exploding Tomatoes and Other Stories. ©️ Headline Home. Composite The Puglia Guys.
