Tuesday, 4 June, was our second of three full days in Sorrento. Following up on yesterday's focus on the traditional crafts of Sorrento, today I'll dive into the traditional foods of Sorrento. These are a subset of the foods of Campania and in some ways different from those of Naples across the bay. I already detailed the wonderful artisanal pasta di Grangano from nearby Pastificceria Somma in the post from two days ago, the foods described in today's entry were tried over our three days in Sorrento.
The first order of business for me was to finally try the celebrated red onions of Tropea. Remember that I had bought a one-kilo bag of them at that truck stop south of Reggio Calabria a few days earlier. Today was my chance, in the breakfast room at the hotel, when everyone else cleared out. The server was a little puzzled at first, but she was friendly and accommodating. She brought me a knife to cut it up, and then seeing me eat it raw (my plan, to know the pure taste), she brought me some bread.
It was very mild, this red onion of Tropea, and almost sweet, and it turned my fingers purple. I told her that I had bought a kilo so I could try one, and that she was welcome to the rest of the bag if she had a use for it, which she accepted, but I kept one more onion in my pocket for later research.
The most famous export of Sorrento, aside from satisfied tourists, is also in my opinion the least interesting: Limoncello. It's also the most ubiquitous. In the bustling central shopping district you can't go 50 paces without finding this local elixir for sale in any number of shapes and sizes, collector bottles and whatnot. It's a sweet lemon liqueur served at any time of day, supposedly made from the lemons of Sorrento, although I think the quantity of limoncello on the shelves must require lemons from a fair distance.
There's no real gastronomic magic to limoncello. I could find no "top-shelf" limoncello, no particularly esteemed makers, none that made any claim to be "the finest artisanal limoncello" in Sorrento. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but if it does it's not known in the best hotels and restaurants that I visited.
As Lorna and Melissa shopped, I went to my next stop, right across the street at the Ristorante Guarracino, where we'd had a snack previously and found the establishment and its people to be friendly.
It was early, but they were open. The tables were decorated with what looked like big yellow misshapen lemons; these were citron, cidre in Italian. In this photo you can see a few big pale citron fruits in a crate along with many smaller, more vibrantly colored Sorrento lemons.
In the US we see diced candied citron at Christmastime, mostly in fruitcakes or sprinkled as a pale translucent green decoration on some baked goods. I wanted buy the one on my table to dissect it. Nausicaa, one of the owners who happened to be my server, was nonplussed, but she acceded to my request.
Here's what it looked like after I had it all cut up. The zest is very thin, then the rind is quite thick and almost spongy in texture; I guess this is why it is so frequently candied, due to its ability to absorb sugar. The pulp of the fruit is like that of any other citrus fruit, but surprisingly dry, which explains why we see so little juice available. I have seen cidre soft drinks, and I have a cidre aperitivo, but really the candied rind seems to be the primary use of this striking fruit. Why it turns that pale green color when it gets candied I cannot say, you can see here that it is as white as lemon and orange rind.
By this time Nausicaa was engaged in my endeavor and ready to answer questions and advice. I asked her about the traditional preparations of the red onion of Tropea, and I pulled from my pocket the one I had in reserve. She burst out laughing and then she took my last onion and vanished!
She returned after just a moment with this traditional Neapolitan tomato salad, just ripe tomatoes sliced with the onion and olive oil and garnished with basil. This was just like the tomato salad that my (half-Neapolitan) father had made all summer when we were growing up! Now I make it at home when tomatoes are in season, but I use mild Vidalia onions because our red onions are too harsh for this light summertime treat.
The women were hungry so they had a nice lunch of citrus risotto at the colorful Ristobiblioteramuseo: Osteria del Buonconvento, but I had other plans. I'd received a hot tip at Bimonte Sorrento (the cameo shop) that I might find the Cicala di Mare at a restaurant down in the fishing village at the Marina Piccola! We walked down, and down, and down to that colorful beachfront place of fishing boats and bathers. And there I found it! The goal of my quest since Gallipoli! There at the Taverna Azzurra I saw two of them in the tank (one hiding in plain sight curled up against a bottle on the right, the other in the back behind the spiny lobster).
The proprietor recognized that I was after a rare foodie experience, and he charged accordingly, but he delivered, too. We had a fine lunch of a grilled Cicala di Mare, grilled red shrimp, an insalate Caprese with avocado, and a bottle of crisp, white local Greco di Tufo.
My cicala di mare was split and grilled and served with some paccheri pasta, traditional with seafood dishes. It was delicious! I had tried a fresh spiny lobster in Gallipoli, and in comparison I found them both to be delicious, more delicate than our steamed Maine lobsters, and the cicala di mare I thought had a more fine, delicate flavor than the more common spiny lobster, but both worked well with savory flavors. I would love to try both boiled.
No mention of the food of Sorrentino would be complete without the homey Gnocchi alla Sorrentina. Gnocchi alla Sorrentina is a simple dish of baked potato gnocchi with a fresh sauce of San Marzano tomatoes from the slopes of Mount Vesuvius, fresh fior di latte cow's milk mozzarella cheese (buffalo mozzarella is a Campania tradition, but not on the Sorrentino peninsula), fresh basil, and a little Parmigiano Reggiano. This simple dish is a staple of children's menus in Italy, but when you make it with quality ingredients it really is a perfectly good first course for a fine dinner.
About that mozzarella. Many people consider the best mozzarella to be mozzarella di bufalo, made from the milk of Mediterranean water buffalo imported by Norman colonizers into Naples from Sicily about a thousand years ago. It's softer and tangier than traditional cow's milk mozzarella, with a more complex flavor, although that extra tang is not to everyone's taste. We'd had that excellent fresh burrata d'Andria in Puglia and now I wanted to try the real local mozzarella di bufalo. On our last day in Sorrento we took a day trip to Paestum, south of Salerno, site of excellent Greek ruins and the home of Masseria Lupata, a farmhouse producer of buffalo milk and cheese products from their own buffalo herd.
When we arrived, the restaurant was closed, but the shop was open, and they had a counter where we could sit and eat our purchases. Lorna and Melissa were a little skeptical at first; the offerings included not only the fresh mozzarella and other cheeses like caciocavallo, but also cheesecake and gelato. The simple salient fact was that most places were closed for lunch and dinner wouldn't be available for hours, so we needed something. I bought the mozzarella shown above and they loved it. Soon we had samples of most things in their cases and they fell to in a feeding frenzy, finishing with the cheesecake, and all this while looking out at their own ancient Greek ruins!