Cucina Triestina: Nuovissimo Prontuario per Professionisti ed Esperti by Cesare Fonda isn’t a cookbook per se. As the title states, it’s more of a handbook on Triestine cuisine “for professionals and experts.” This pocket-size guide contains a mere 91 pages, but these are jam-packed with descriptions of local Triestine dishes.
A brief introduction describes the characteristics of typical Triestine cuisine. The author begins by differentiating between dishes that are native to the region (in particular, the seafood dishes that locals have been cooking as far back as ancient Roman Tergeste) and those “imported” from other cultures (for example, the countless meat and vegetable dishes from Central Europe and the Balkan Peninsula). But even in the case of the latter, he asserts, locals have often modified those dishes, adding a Mediterranean touch with the use of olive oil, garlic, and tomatoes.
Listed alphabetically, with the letter of the alphabet displayed prominently at the outer margin of each page, many of the entries are cross-referenced. For example, the book’s first listing is for “Agnel, coradela de,” but Fonda simply advises the reader to refer instead to “Coradela de agnel” (coratella di agnello, or “lamb offal”). As this example also demonstrates, the names of many dishes are given in the Triestine dialect.
Unless providing a cross-reference, each entry features a brief description of the dish, along with any notable variations. Desserts are indicated with a special symbol. In addition to typical Triestine dishes, the guide also includes quite a few types of fish and seafood that are found in the waters of the Adriatic Sea. In fact, the book’s only illustrations are black-and-white drawings of these fish.
Because Cucina Triestina doesn’t contain actual recipes, it was less useful to me from the standpoint of recipe testing. It was, however, instrumental in helping resolve several dilemmas I was facing. One such example was the baccalà stew from Trieste. In some of my sources, I’d found a recipe calling for tomatoes, while others called for potatoes. My quandary was deciding in which direction to take my recipe for Flavors of Friuli, since both versions seemed to be equally prevalent, at least in the publications I was referencing at the time. My solution came when I read Fonda’s entry for baccalà in rosso, where he describes the dish as containing tomatoes, with a variation calling for the addition of potatoes—hence my decision to include both tomatoes and potatoes in my rendition of the dish.
