Radicchio di Castelfranco
A few months ago, I was sitting at Naranzaria, a small outdoor restaurant on a canal in Venice (Italy, not California), adjacent to the sprawling open-air produce market that's one of the many joys of this city on the sea. My family quickly became addicted to that restaurant's salads, and my eight-year-old daughter had gone rather mad for a curious vegetable called radicchio di Castelfranco.
Radicchio di Castelfranco is created by a complex series of operations that alter its natural pigmentation so its cream-colored leaves are shot through with veins that vary from light purple to wine-red. Along with its dramatic look, it has a sweeter flavor and a crunchier texture than most radicchio. It's to salad greens what the truffles of Alba are to mushrooms.
But this type of vegetable is nearly impossible to find stateside – or so I thought. Then one day I meandered into All' Angelo to try their Venetian-style cicchetti (tapas) menu, which is served Mondays through Thursdays. There were 10 dishes, including an octopus salad with celery and bottarga (pressed fish roe) and seared bone marrow with black cabbage and dark chocolate. And there, at the bottom of the list, was a dish called lasagnetta di radicchio di Castelfranco e porcini (radicchio lasagna with porcini mushrooms).
"It was not easy to find radicchio di Castelfranco," said All' Angelo owner Stefano Ongaro, "but I had to. I am Venetian, and it is a very Venetian ingredient."
The radicchio lasagna tasted just perfect. All that was missing was the Grand Canal. And the pigeons, too, though I can't say I missed them as much.
- Merrill Shindler