Primo Levi at the table

In Turin, one does not serve a single dish but a succession: antipasti (small starters, often anchovy-based), primo (rice or fresh pasta like tajarin and agnolotti), secondo (braised meat), then dolce. Alongside the formal meal exists the merenda sinoira, a typical Piedmontese late-afternoon snack-dinner, and the conviviality of bagna càuda where everyone dips their vegetables into a shared pot. The cuisine of Turin's Jewish community, to which the Levi family belonged, adds its own discreet customs to this grammar of meals.

Salt-preserved anchovy is the common thread running through all Piedmontese cuisine, even though Piedmont does not touch the sea. It is thanks to the acciugai, peddlers who brought salt and fish up from the Ligurian coast over alpine passes. Salty, melting, deeply umami, it seasons both bagna càuda and green sauces — a flavor of a mountain land that dreams of the sea.