Simply a piece of fresh fruit usually drops the curtain on an Italian meal, for after all the good flavors and abundance of a pasta or risotto dish and savory main courses, who could eat pecan pie a’ la mode?
Rather than dessert, an essential highlight of an Italian feast is l’ insalata, always following the main course (to clean the palate, facilitate digestion).
Seasoning? Just salt, wine vinegar and olive oil (often the family’s own), mixed into the salad ingredients in that order, only in that order.
As I write this now during summer salad time, thoughts go to that fennel goodness which enhances our winter salads. The fennel season is behind us now but cucumbers replace them in our salads – and soon, tomatoes.
On our land, we don’t have much luck with fennel – due to pesky moles – but farm friend Giuseppa (near Deruta) certainly does! And what splendid exemplaries she’d give me if visiting her during fennel season – with a generous bunch of her arugula, too:
From our own garden, I’d add radicchio or other lettuces Pino grows us:
Where to wash those lettuces? At the outdoor pump near our farmhouse, a recent handiwork of Pino:
….and how well Pino seasons that salad:
Anyone have room for dessert?
Read more about – and see! – Giuseppa here
Read more about our rural friends here
Click here for more recipes
Read about a family group’s “favorite day in Italy”
Thanks for the tip! Salt, wine vinegar, olive oil, in that order only 🙂
Great!!! … and simple