We have already said, Ligurian cuisine is a hypocritical cuisine, lean, Lenten, deceives itself with the triumph of fish (the lean capon, already treated in recent weeks, is an example), recycling, "leftovers ”, It is hidden in an apparent richness.
In the recipe books the top is considered a meat dish, but in fact the meat is only a thin glaze, the "big", the "ciccia" is made of offal and vegetables (and the further away you get from Genoa, the Superba, even offal decreases ...).
A dish that has become a gastronomic symbol of Liguria, but born poor. Basically a long thin strip of veal belly, sewn to accommodate sweetbreads, brains, testicles, breasts, eggs, peas, parmesan and the magical ingredient, "a persa", marjoram. Easy? To say yes, to do a little less.
The meat must be sewn well, the filling dosed to perfection to prevent it from escaping during the boil, already because the top must boil for at least an hour and the eggs increase in volume, mistaking the doses means making the top explode and ruin it irremediably!
Tradition has it that the number of eggs is calculated by placing the fist placed on the still empty "pocket" of meat and counting how many punches are needed to occupy the entire surface of the pocket. The proportion changes depending on whether the punch is from a man or a woman. Once boiled, wrapped in a linen cloth, the top is cooled between two soup plates, with an antique iron or mortar placed on it.
The filling changes, from Genoa to the Riviere the offal almost disappears, more vegetables enter, even the carrot to give color, sometimes the rice, other times the mortadella.
It is eaten warm or cold (in Sanremo the slices are even fried), accompanied by a Rossese or a Granaccia. The single slice is called “éuggio” (eye). De Andrè sang about it in a song recorded in the album “Le nuvole”.
Whoever prepared the top, according to Faber, should have put a sorghum broom in a corner of the kitchen. Witches who wanted to curse the dish would have to count the bark threads first and the cook would have had time to finish the preparation.
@innocenzoturco @ramoninovini @tenutamaffone
