Saturday, March 27, 2010

Da Nerbone at Florence's Mercato Centrale

Lampredotto

That was awesome. We didn't get a chance to check out these lampredotto tripe sandwiches when we were at the market yesterday, so we finally came down here today to stand 292 in the southeastern corner of the market (055-219-949). Tripe might not sound very appetizing to some people, but one dose of that red piccante sauce extinguishes all hesitation. It was almost like a Mexican salsa, and it just lit the thing up - both in terms of heat and fragrance (you could put that stuff on dog food and it would make it taste good). But the tripe was very tender and tasty on its own, easily making this one of the most memorable things I've eaten on this trip thus far.

Pappardelle al Cinghiale

Actually, they had a lot of other local specialities available today, ranging from artichoke to spinach and even some beef sandwiches whose bread got dipped in its moist juices, similar to French Dip sandwiches in Los Angeles (or Italian Beef in Chicago, which I assume to have no direct relation to these despite the name). We didn't try any of those, but we once again ordered some wild boar pappardelle to see if this shop's version would fare any better than stuff from the past two days. And it did; there was hardly any tomato while the meat was a bit more tender (and the cheese helped provide a lot of richness). Good stuff - the energy and lack of space to eat around this stall made this all the more a unique local experience.

1 comment:

sugarmeg said...

according to local legend italian beef sandwiches were created by Italian people - wikipedia says: "One story has it that the Italian Beef sandwich was started by Italian immigrants who worked for the old Union Stock Yards. They often would bring home some of the tougher, less desirable cuts of beef sold by the company. To make the meat more palatable, it was slow-roasted to make it more tender, then slow-simmered in a spicy broth for flavor. Both the roasting and the broth used Italian-style spices and herbs. The meat was then thinly sliced across the grain and stuffed into fresh Italian bread."

btw i'm a big fan!