Sylvie Freddi
When you can move freely, go and visit the splendid park of Ninfa. After the visit, sit at the table of a nice restaurant and order a plate of puntarelle, those crunchy green curly strips seasoned with oil, vinegar and anchovies.
Ecco cuer che succede a ttanti ggnocchi
che nun zanno addistingue in ne l’erbajja
le puntarelle mai da li mazzocchi.
(Giuseppe Gioachino Belli - Roman sonnets -XIX century
Puntarelle have always been one of my favorite vegetables. As a child I used to stop in Campo de’ Fiori to look at a lady sitting on a small stool. I presume it was a stool that was hidden under her overwhelming frame. The lady, therefore, took a bunch of chicorione from the counter, removed the largest leaves and with a small knife separated the large white shoots that sprouted in the middle. Then she engraved them at an incredible speed until they formed small strips that she threw into a blue plastic basin filled with water. The white and green stripes instantly curled as if they were alive. My mother bought a bag of it and pulled me away.
For a while I moved to France. Obviously I tried to explain the puntarelle to the lady who had a small vegetable stand in the square below my house. To make myself better understood, with my hands I mimicked the gesture of the knife that frays the shoots. But she looked at me in fear, shaking her head. My verbal explanations weren't much help either.
Fortunately, a friend from Rome, more cultured than me, clarified the situation to me, the puntarelle are something from Lazio, or more precisely from the Latin area. So I gave up with the French lady and her vegetable stand.
Now I look again with cannibal love at my plate full of curls.
The puntarelle are the sprouts of Catalonian chicory, digestive and detoxifying vegetables, a panacea for health. They have a very low calorie content, rich in fiber, mineral salts and vitamins. In the past they were offered in the break between courses to rest the stomach during the endless Sunday lunches or holidays. The Greek physician and philosopher of the 2nd century AD Galen mentioned this vegetable as a beneficial plant for the liver.
If you have the lady who curls them, the recipe is very simple, otherwise the matter gets complicated.
So, take a bag filled with puntarelle wet and turgid bought in Campo de 'Fiori or around the Latina area.
Put the anchovies oil and vinegar in a small bowl and let it rest for a while. Prepare yourself with a deep plate and fill it with the crispy chicory, bought the same day. Pour in the sauce and mix. Let it rest for 15 minutes so that everything flows into one another.
And you will have an incredible “Insalata fatta dal tallo di cicoria presso all’insemenzire” as Belli would still say.
C/O Società Dante Alighieri 
