Baccala` in Umido alla Maniera di Sor Francesco

(as told by Nonna Beatrice Bassanetti)

Pratica di Mare is a village at the center of a farm that until the '60s was of about 3 square miles. In those years, Pratica di Mare was inhabited by 30 families with 110 inhabitants. They all worked for the Borghese Administration directed by my father-in-law Silvio. There was Americo the factotum, Giovanni the milk man, Serafino the carpenter, Ernesto, the brother of Clementina the cook, was the decorator and the director of Fabbrica Ceramiche Artistiche di Pratica di Mare (Ceramic Factory), a very expensive hobby of Princess Borghese (in the USA there is a large quantity of the ceramic objects produced in Pratica - an importer from San Francisco would buy most of the production of the factory). There were the nuns with mother superior Sister Agnese, Sister Maria the cook and Sister Anna Amelia kindergarten teacher. There was Giovanni Bernardi and Tullio Facioni, carpenters and responsible for the maintenance of the village. There was Maresciallo Bornia of the horse mounted Carabinieri. There were the girls of Pratica, Teresa, Anna, Fernanda, Lucia, Odilla, Clelia, the twins Paolucci and there were the pilots from the nearby military airport always on the lookout for beautiful girls. And finally there was Sor Francesco, father-in-law of Ernesto and host of the only Osteria in town. The wine arrived in “coppelle” (wood casks of 25 liters) from Casal Sodano in the Castelli Romani; water arrived via a pipeline from a spring at the edge of a beautiful wood full of oaks and, just by miracle, the number of casks doubled… from the effect of the water that the smart host used to dilute the wine! But event though the wine was a bit watery, the “Baccala` in Umido” of Sor Francesco was able to move countless people from Rome to come and taste it.

Everyone new from where Sor Francesco bought his ingredients, everyone could see how he prepared the dish, but no one was ever able to imitate his dish; was there a secret or was it a question of touch? Who knows?... we’ll never know.  About 30 years ago together with Clementina and her sister-in-law Darma, daughter of Sor Francesco, we tried to reconstruct the recipe and I have been making it this way since then. I hope you enjoy it.

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