Sunday, December 14, 2008

And the cabbage you rode in on!



Something over 20 years ago Pierino was traveling in Italy with friends and armed with his classroom Italian which wasn't bad but...

We had access to a kitchen not far from Siena so with a degree of confidence Pierino walked into a green grocer and asked for a cabbage (we thought). Cabbage in Italian is "cavolo" but horse is "cavallo." Now the pronunciation is important. It is possible to find horse meat in Italy but not in a green grocer. After some head scratching we saw what we needed and discovered that we should have asked for "savoia."

Pierino was reminded of this story when he was making a big thick minestrone. Pierino's version isn't ribollita but it doesn't need any bread thickener. It will be plenty filling on its own.

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