SC - Socca and food migration

[Philip & Susan Troy]

"ana l. valdes" wrote:
> 
> I really welcome the discussion and the possibility of learning more
> about the "travels" of the food.
> By the way, when I was in Nice for first time, last year, I ate some
> wonderful local speciality, it was called "socca" and was done with
> chickpeasflour and oliveoil.

I'm deeply interested in food migration also; there are foods commonly
eaten in New York State that just perplex me. For example there's an
entire sub-cuisine of seafood dishes that is very common all across the
state, and most of the state has no oceanfront. It occurred to me to
wonder just why you can get raw oysters on the half-shell in half the
bars and restaurants in, say, Binghamton, New York. I think it's the
result of railroad expansion and the use of refrigerated cars in the
nineteenth century that has led to some interesting culinary
cross-pollination.  

I used to work in a Provencale restaurant in New York, and we served
both socca and panisse fairly often. We probably took great liberties
with the traditional socca, though: we made them as thin pancakes, which
we wrapped around ratatouille, and while I've heard of socca being made
in this way (i.e. as a thin pancake), I've also heard of it being baked
and/or broiled [grilled], something like a baked polenta dish.

Here's a  socca recipe [MODERN, but the dish is probably quite old], for
those that are interested...from Mirielle Johnston's "Cuisine of the Sun":

"For 6 people:

2/3 cup chickpea flour
3 Tbs olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup water
freshly ground black pepper

Mix the flour, oil, salt, and water, in a bowl. Stir well and let stand
for one hour (at room temperature or refrigerated).

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Oil a round, shallow pan and pour on the
batter -- it should be very thin, about 1/8 inch thick. Put the pan
under a moderate broiler as close to the flame as possible. After five
minutes, sprinkle a little olive oil on the top and broil for 5 to 10
more minutes until it is crisp and golden, with the consistency of a
thich crepe or pancake. Sprinkle with salt and freshly ground black
pepper. With a spatula, slide it onto a serving plate and cut it into
2x2-inch wedges. Serve on small plates with forks or on paper napkins --
a bit messy, but so delicious."

I note that this recipe instructs us to preheat the oven to 400 degrees
F., and then says to use the broiler. Possibly this is a difference in
design between the standard British "cooker" (I believe Ms. Johnston is
British) and the typical American range/oven/broiler arrangement
commonly known as a stove. These usually have a setting where you light
the broiler, and it doesn't much matter what the oven temperature is set
at; it'll just be at full blast, more or less.
 
> I was amazed, because I knew this local speciality to be an Rio de la
> Plata, only made in Buenos Aires and Montevideo. We call it "fainá", and
> I wondered why had this speciality from Nice travel all the way to the
> South of South America.
> Some friend told me it was the same dish, eaten in Liguria, the North of
> Italy, called in Italy "faina" in a local dialect and called in Nice
> "socca", dialect too.
> Nice was until the last century part of Italy and many people emigrated
> from Nice to Buenos Aires and Montevideo when the city was given to
> France. They didnt want be part of France and they took the way of
> exile.

Wow! I've never heard of faina until now. It's especially interesting to
see an Italian dish of this kind (perhaps not exactly "mainstream"
Italian cuisine) in South America, but I gather, for one reason or
another, that a lot of Italians ended up there at various times, to the
point that many Argentines and Uruguayans have as much Italian ancestry
as they do Spanish. I think South America was just considered an open
continent for exiles to find a home in, what with Franco and  Mussolini
doing what they did earlier in the 20th century. Oddly enough, I was in
an Argentine restaurant this past Saturday, and I was curious to note
that the menu contained about 30% Italian dishes, and nobody thought
this was odd. On the other hand, considering all the Chinese that
actually escaped the new Communist regime to Cuba and Brazil in 1949
(imagine their surprise when Castro showed up!) this isn't so odd after
all. But, again, it resulted in another interesting hybrid cuisine
(Chinese restaurants that serve bread on the table as soon as you walk
in, routinely serve cafe con leche, etc.) It's not just that they serve
foods from both types of cuisine, although that's true. There's a
distinctive difference in both cooking style and presentation, probably
because of isolation from the mainstream culture that inspired it. 

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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