A nice little salad in the middle of winter
So refreshing! So easy. So Mediterranean.
This salad is practical: fennel and orange are both in season (depending on where you are; and if you’re lucky, there are still some red peppers hanging around). It is the most sensible of salads: utterly refreshing in the moment in the year when you think you’ve eaten your way through the winter holidays and every rich thing that comes your way, from latkes to jelly doughnuts, turkey and stuffing, panettone, and trifle and endless cookies. Each bite of this salad feels lighter than the last, and you can almost feel it doing you good with its hefty dose of vitamin-rich vegetables and fruit. And it just tastes so good!
But of course, there is a story beyond the recipe and its delight. There is always a story. Does anything ever just pop up into my head? Nah, it usually enters my life (and my kitchen) via a story.
This salad has two stories.
The first is evocative; feel free to skip over it if you find it too…well, evocative. But know its true and the salad came to me, at an impromptu barbecue, on a beach on the coast of Liguria, decades ago, when I had been in Italy for about one hour.
It was, of course, in my late teen years, when the dollar was strong and everything seemed possible. So many new things to experience and especially, to taste. I had no idea of the fruits and vegetables, cultures and cuisines I would be discovering, but I was ready for whatever came my way. I had already had about 6 months of new tasting experiences throughout Europe.
And now, there we were, a group of about 10 people, maybe 8 nationalities, driving our vw bus from Nice, France, (chipping in for gas and switching drivers), headed vaguely to Greece—crossed the border into Italy.
It was a small road, not even a highway, maybe villages were around somewhere, but we didn’t go through any, nor were there any cities; the border wasn’t marked, and the only way we knew we were in Italy was because when we passed a phone booth in the countryside somewhere, the person inside was using their hands, gesturing their side of the conversation, while holding the receiver between their ear and neck. Even if the person on the other side couldn’t see, clearly the phone-person needed their hands to speak. And so: I knew we were in Italy. It was so classic that central casting could not have done a better job; I wanted to laugh out loud with delight.
Our little road next took us to a village, then a farmers market, then a beach, and before you knew it it was barbecue time. One of our gang, Oskar—a student film-maker from Egypt, rigged a barbecue from a large tin can and some bits of wood etc he found rummaging along the sands. We had just bought whatever fresh stuff there was at the marketplace: in this case, fresh sardines, bread, fennel, red peppers, olives.
I cut the vegetables up and dressed them in olive oil and vinegar (both local, bought from a farmer). We were coming from a month in Nice, where the flavors are so similar (they used to be part of the same country), so I didn’t need a recipe or even a thought in my head: it just seemed the right thing to do. (it didn’t dawn on me to add orange, until years later when I actually learned to cook).
The grilled sardines were amazing—I think I had to catch my breath at their beautiful simplicity: the aroma, the smoke, the oils basting the sardine’s flesh. I had never had a fresh sardine before, and combined with the scent of smoke, and salt from the sea’s edge, I fell into a reverie about…a fish! Which felt so weird at first, but there I was: sniffing the air, watching the fish grill, listening to the sea, taking my first bite.
We broke off hunks of fresh bread to go with it all, dunked it into the olive oil mixed with sardines juices. Then turned to the salad: despite being only a few ingredients, it was utterly memorable. It still is. I mean: honest, vibrant, refreshing, and while not a culinary statement, it became a taste memory to usher me into adulthood and the rest of my life.
Because it is a happy memory and feels so personal, I love the story, but you don’t need my story to love this salad: it is worth making whenever you have fennel, peppers, and orange-type citrus.
The second story is recent (very), and more like a warning than a story. To start off with, you should definately use a mandoline to thinly slice the fennel and red pepper (though in my first fennel and red pepper beach-barbecue-salad I used only a penknife). There are no two ways about it, however: the airy nearly paper thin slices amplify the taste of the vegetables, and create the lightest pile of vegetables you can imagine. So, by all means: use a mandoline for slicing.
The warning part: each time a mandoline is required in a recipe, a stern warning is usually issued. For good reason.
And even if you think: I’m careful, I’m a seasoned cook, don’t let your guard down. Learn from my mistake: since I had never had a finger sliced by the blade, I thought I was on top of the situation .
Until last week.
I was slicing cucumbers on the mandoline, gliding the vegetable back and forth, which I love to do because it feels so nice, the thinly sliced cucumbers practically falling from the blade like autumn-leaves; plus, the thinly sliced cucumbers are practically a salad before you even add dressing.
So there I was, slicing away, but something was wrong. I was not relaxed. I was not paying attention. My little dog was barking and begging for a snack while I was waiting for a call from her veterinarian about a possible emergency, my back hurt and I needed medicating, the radio was playing Christmas songs and I was carried away in a sweet-sad river of feelings. So I wasn’t paying attention. When I should have been using the finger guard, I just kept on using my fingers.
Thankfully it wasn’t as bad as it seemed at the time, since the whole medical system (in the UK, where I live) is fairly chaotic and non-existant at the moment; the last thing I wanted was to need medical care and sit for hours/days in a disease-ridden ER, waiting for it. I washed the cut well, held it up high to staunch the flow of blood, dressed and kept redressing it as needed. By the next day it had pretty much stopped bleeding. So, I will reiterate the warning: pay careful attention when using a Mandoline.
But you still should use it, because the thinly sliced vegetables (or fruit, especially apples, pears, melon, fuyu persimmons, anything firm) are so delightful. (No need to have a fancy expensive one either, I use a Japanese fairly low cost mandoline and it works beautifully). Just, like with all mandolines, pay attention and protect your fingers.
Fennel, Red Pepper, Orange and Black Olive Salad
Serves 2
1 nice fat fresh fennel bulb
1 red bell pepper or long mild sweet red pepper, seeds and stems removed
1 sweet juicy orange, or several Mandarin, satsuma, clementines, (etc)
Salt to taste
Handful of flavorful black olives, unpitted (though this means you’ll need to be careful not to bite down on the pit: the truth about olives and pitting is that there is an enzyme close to the pit that is part of the olives goodness. If you pit it, then put it in brine as the pitted olives are sold, then you get too much marinated/brine flavor, and not enough olive flavor; at least this is my belief). (If your olives are very salty, cut way back on the salt you use to toss the fennel and pepper.
The juices of the cut up citrus fruit
1-2 teaspoons white wine vinegar, or to taste
1-2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, or to taste
Optional: a handful of either arugula/rocket leaves, or a smaller handful fresh sweet mint leaves, thinly sliced
Thinly slice the fennel and red pepper; a mandoline will give you the most beautiful, thin, gorgeous slices, but take rapt attention and care to keep your fingers safe. You could also use a sharp knife, or the slicing attachment to a food processor. The main thing is to get the slices as thin as possible, yet keep their integrity (ie not letting them become a liquidy salsa instead of a pristine salad).
Peel the citrus: slice or cut into chunks, saving the juice to add to the vegetables.
Toss the fennel and pepper with a little bit of salt; let sit a minute or two then add the citrus, toss well, then add their juices, the wine vinegar, and the olive oil. Taste for seasoning and balance.
Serve now or chill for later; good with anything saucey or rich, barbecued, kebab-ed, or roasted; we ate it last week with gormeh sabzi (see one of my previous newsletters for the recipe). If you like, garnish the platter/bowl with either arugula/rocket or fresh mint.
I realize that there is a lot of story-and-backstory rejecting these days of the internet: “Just cut to the recipe”. But I question this reality, and wonder if those making these statements really care about the recipes or their cooking in general.
Stories are more important than we might think. The story is like a condiment, an extra dimension, like adding vibrant colors to a monochrome image. A story can tell you so much, give tips that help you understand what the dish will taste like, relay its history, why you may or may not like/love it, and perhaps give you ideas to make it your own. I am a story-lover; I think we all are, by nature. And rather than the story evoking the recipe, sometimes it is the recipe that evokes the story, and if it is yours, that moment in life that you might have forgotten and can re-live through the scent, and taste, of a recipe. Its that powerful, both ways.
Stories are a crucial part of the transmission of culture (especially food culture), generation to generation,place to place, there are lessons in stories, enjoyment in stories, ideas in other people’s stories that perhaps resonate in our own. Someone else’s story can make you feel seen, even if its not your story at all. Something in it reaches you. Also, I often feel that stories and narration are the art aspect to the recipe’s science, working together to create a wonderful experience.
May 2023 fill us all with lots of stories and foods, to make or remember, foods to delight in (and, if we need it, with strength).
Happy New Year everybody!
Love your stories -- the last two on your aunt’s latkes and your brother’s ex-wife’s Gormeh Sabzi were particularly poignant. Here’s to humanity!