I have always considered pizza to be Napoli’s most famous food. In November, Antonia Tubelli, the owner of Timpani & Tempura and our teacher for the cuisine of Campania changed my understanding forever. Although it is popular all over Italy and the world it is a relatively recent arrival in the history of Napoli. A much broader view of the cuisine of both Napoli and Campania requires a review of geography and history to place the raw ingredients and the recipes in the right time and place.

 

Campania is separated into two distinct geographies relative to food. The fertile strip of land from Napoli up to the border with Lazio is an agricultural paradise based on the loose, black, volcanic soil called terra pulla. Driving through the country reminds me of the Monterey valley in California. The rich soil can grow many crops each season and has been heavily cultivated since before the times of the Greeks by the peoples of Capua or the “Campani” In contrast, the rest of Campania from Naples east and then south is mountainous with little arable flat land for growing crops. Here you find smaller scale agriculture often terraced up or down a mountain. Historically it provided subsistence living and not much else. So why is the geography of Campania important? Because over time, as is true in many countries today, people left the infertile countryside and moved to the cities to make a better living and to survie the times of famine. They moved to the cities to eat.

Campania is divided into five provinces, Naples, Caserta, Benevento, Avellino and Salerno. The smallest of these is Napoli although Napoli is the largest city by population and land mass. Napoli was one of the most powerful cities in Europe as the capital of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies. Through a succession of rulers starting with the Normans and ending with the Spanish Bourbons over 700 years, Napoli grew into the largest city on the Italian peninsula. As it grew, the differentiation between the rich and the poor increased. With that growth the living conditions worsened for those who did not live up in the hills or in a castello, but lived down near the harbor in over-crowded conditions. This influx of poor into the city required a new way to feed them as they couldn’t grow their own food like they used to in the countryside. So street food became very popular with items like salt cod, mollusks, fish found in the tidal zones and land snails becoming inexpensive ways to provide protein. Bread became a greater necessity as it was a way to provide carbohydrates and a bit of protein as well. Many a small business person set up shop with a cart or a stall, a fire, a pot and something to stir it with. Although maccaroni had been known for hundreds of years before, it used to be a food for special occasions. With the development of new hydrolic pasta presses, maccaroni (spaghetti) became much cheaper to make and so joined the pantheon of fast meals found on the streets. Interestingly, spaghetti was originally a food eaten with your hands. So the foods of Napoli that we think of today were primarily street foods to feed the masses. This includes the most iconic food of all, pizza.

There is a further distinction for the food of Campania is to place the food into a historical context. Most of what we consider Italian food or more specifically Companian is not native to Italy or Europe for that mater. Tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, potatoes and corn did not arrive in Europe until after the return of Columbus. So pizza margharita (named supposedly after a visit by Queen Margharita of Savoie in the 1889) is a relative new comer as compared to other Napolitano stables. In fact during the cholera epidemics of the late 1800’s that savaged Napoli in particular with its poor sanitation and lack of clean water, one of the generally accepted beliefs for the spreading of the disease was street food. In particular pizza!

So with this little bit of background about Neapolitan street food I introduce Antonio, our instructor.

His shop, Timpani & Tempura is a museum of the street foods of Napoli as well as the foods of the countryside. Originally a computer programmer for Alitalia, he became active in union organizing and local politics. He later took up cooking and worked in several restaurants before opening his own. After a while he decided he didn’t need the constant hassle of a large restaurant so he opened up Timpani & Tempura. It is a combination of a local food market, a treasure trove of local foods that he wants to preserve, and a quick eat in shop. Of all the instructors we’ve had, he focused the most on the history of the region and the history of the food.

We made a lot of fried food and one of the most interesting cooking traits of Antonio is that he cooked exclusively in extra virgin olive oil…lots of olive oil. The second trait is that he exclusively used products from Campania. This included some wonderful clustered tomatoes that were hung up in a house with a fire place. They had a subtle smoky flavor about them. Below is a recipe for mullet and salt cod which for hundred of years were staples for people on the streets of Napoli.

Cefalo E Baccala Fritto

Cleaning, deboning and sectioning grey mullet and salt cod

Coat with flour twice. The first when wet to get a nice crust after drying 30 minutes and the second to help keep it from sticking together.

After frying in olive oil they were delicious. On the outside they were crispy and flacky and soft and succulent on the inside.

Plated with a salad made with salted and pickled vegetables this was a white table cloth version of a simple street food that goes back over 500 years.