These three dishes are: testaroli, a rich first course, gattafin, a poor man’s dish now a staple for many local restaurants and Badalucco codfish, a hearty second course.
Gattafin - round
It is difficult to define testaroli. Some say they are an ancient unleavened bread, some talk about them as the ancestors of pasta, some compare them to a French crepe. But none of these definitions give the idea of what they really taste like. Testaroli are made with just three simple ingredients, wheat flour, water and salt, mixed until they form a sort of batter that is spread in a so called testo, a circular cast iron container then placed on burning embers and covered with another testo heated by embers. The resulting soft and porous disk is then cut into pieces, which are immersed for 30 seconds in boiling water and are usually seasoned with the traditional basil pesto.
In the past, the testo used to be made of terracotta, which explains the name testarolo, from the Latin testa, which indicated any type of terracotta object.
Testaroli are typical of Lunigiana, an area located between Tuscany and Liguria, a crossroads of different peoples, uses and customs.
As I mentioned, pesto is the sauce of choice today but the oldest seasoning was only extra virgin olive oil, pecorino or parmesan cheese and very finely chopped basil.
Testaroli
Gattafin - triangular shape
Another great recipe is gattafin.
Most Ligurian traditional recipes as this one were born in the times when housewives cooked what the seasons, nature and local trade brought to the kitchen table.
The dishes were low in fat, except for the fragrant and delicately fruity extra virgin olive oil, rich in fiber and vegetable proteins, flavored with the inevitable aromatic herbs among which the persa, the marjoram, stands out.
There are two hypotheses on the etymology of the name: the first is that it derives from Gattafura, which was the name that indicated all the savory preparations enclosed between two layers of puff pastry and baked in the oven, another comes from the fact that this recipe was prepared by the wives of the workers of the quarry located in Gatta village starting from the herbs that the husbands brought home in the evening.
In the gattafin recipe you only need wild herbs such as wild chard, spinach or anything else you have available and a little parmesan or pecorino cheese.
It is basically a fried dough ‘raviolo’ filled with herbs and cheese and then fried in olive oil.
Last but not least, the stockfish Badalucco style features dry stockfish cooked in a sauce of pine nuts, walnuts, hazelnuts, olives and amaretti biscuits, softening its strong flavour with the delicate aromatic notes of dried fruit.
It has been known since the Middle Ages thanks to contacts with the populations of Northern Europe, both dry, in the form of stockfish or cod.
For centuries, cod remained just one of the many food oddities that could be found in the shops near the main port in Genoa but in the 18th century it became the king of fish consumed on our tables.
The widespread consumption of this fish is justified not only by its preservation technique but also by the numerous preparations that are available for this fish.
Legend has it that the inhabitants of Badalucco village managed to resist a long Saracen siege thanks to their supplies of stockfish and even managed, and this is history, to repel the invaders at sea.
Every year in this ancient town, the event is remembered during the stockfish festival, which takes place on the third Sunday of September.
These three specialties are rather seasonal and served mostly in the Fall period in Ligurian restaurants.
