Peposa alla Fornicina

M

y dearest friend here in southeastern Connecticut is a fellow who compares favorably to my perception of Calvin Trillin's "man with the naugahyde palate." That is to say, for example, given a choice between quality and quantity in culinary matters, quantity prevails every time. In his defense, though, I've never actually seen him pull his chair up to the buffet table in an all-you-can-eat restaurant. But I have seen a couple of hosts develop a slight pallor as they've escorted him to his table.

And while he seems to have reduced eating to its barest essentials, he has a small quirk that suggests a degree of discernment, indicating perhaps there was a time when he could identify a dish with flavor: he applies freshly-ground black pepper to every meal before he tastes it. I suspect it's a habit he developed over the course of four years spent eating tasteless food three times per day at a New England prep school.

I thought of my friend right away when I came across an old Tuscan recipe, Peposo alla Fornicina, Beef Stew in the style of the Kiln Worker. Peposo's key ingredient is black pepper.

The history of Peposo begins in approximately 1437, when Filipo Brunelleschi was supervising construction of the dome on La Chiesa Santa Maria del Fiore, the Duomo in Florence. At the start of the business day, one of the kiln workers would toss the ingredients for Peposo into a clay pot and put it into the kiln in which the terra cotta tiles for the dome were fired, where it would cook for several hours. At lunchtime, runners would shuttle bowls of the stew up to the tile workers on the dome

The tile workers seemed to like the stew well enough, but the notion of spending their lunch hour on the dome—depriving them of the chance to play a few friendly hands of Scopa——didn't go over well at all, causing a small rebellion among them that may have amounted to the first labor strike in Italy.

History becomes weak about the origin of the dish, though. Credit seems to go, —in equal measure, —to nearly any town near Florence that had even a small tile making facility. Among those laying claim to Peposo, are Pistoia, Impruneta, and even La Spezia, in the province of Liguria. It goes without saying that all the towns making such a claim include the detail that dottore Brunelleschi visited each of them to select his tiles one at a time.

Beyond the pepper that characterizes Peposo, the stew is no more than a combination of meat, garlic, and red wine, cooked at low heat for several hours, with a wonderful outcome. Over time, cooks embellished the dish with tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, or all three ingredients. Brunelleschi's stew did not likely include tomatoes, though, as they didn't appear in Italy until the mid sixteenth century at the earliest.

By tradition, Tuscans serve Peposo over crostini, toasted bread. When I cooked it on Sunday evening, I served it over polenta. I imagine it would be delicious with roasted potatoes as well.

As we sat down to dinner, I offered my friend the pepper mill. Having heard the history of the dish, though, he replied, "I'll wait until I've tasted it. Thanks."

Peposo alla Fornicina
Beef Stew, Kiln Worker's-Style

Ingredients:

2 Lb. Beef stew meat, cut into bite-sized chunks
10 Cloves garlic, peeled, but left whole
1 - 2 Tbs. Crushed black peppercorns
3 - 4 Cups dry red wine
Salt
4 1 in. Slices rustic bread
1 Clove garlic, peeled and halved

Preparation:

Pre-heat the oven to 250 F.

Place the meat and garlic in an ovenproof casserole. Sprinkle the crushed peppercorns over all. Add enough red wine to cover the meat by approximately one inch.

Bring the casserole to a simmer on the stove, then cover, and place the casserole in the center of the pre-heated oven. Cook, adjusting the heat so the stew barely bubbles, for approximately six hours. If the liquid reduces too much while the stew cooks, add hot water to compensate.

At the end of cooking, the sauce should be thick enough to coat a spoon, and the meat should be falling apart. Taste, and season the stew with salt as necessary.

At serving time, toast the bread slices, and rub them with the garlic halves.

To Serve:

Place one slice of the toasted bread in each of four soup bowls, then divide the stew equally among them.

Serves four.

Technorati tags: Peposo, Italian Recipes, Skip Lombardi