Salt-preserved anchovies, desalted then topped with a raw green sauce of parsley, garlic, vinegar, and breadcrumbs: a pantry condiment that keeps for several days and accompanies boiled meats and vegetables.

Why this dish? Salted anchovies and their green sauce (bagnet verd) are the emblematic preserve of Piedmont, this land without sea that appropriated salted fish via the alpine salt routes. This flavor of the larder, which keeps and travels, connects to Levi's vital relationship with food that lasts and reassures.

In Piedmont, you see, we have no sea, and yet the anchovy is everywhere — that's the paradox of our cuisine, this fish brought up from the South on muleback, over the passes, in its salt. At home, we always kept a jar; you just had to rinse it well to remove the salt of the past months. The bagnet verd, the green sauce, we crushed it in a mortar: the bright green parsley, garlic, vinegar, and the soaked bread to soften it. It kept, it traveled, it waited without complaining — a food of foresight, as we like in the land of long winters.

How it was made : Salted anchovies arrived in Piedmont through the trade of acciugai, peddlers who transported salt and fish from Liguria. Bagnet verd, a raw green sauce, traditionally accompanied bollito misto (Piedmontese boiled meat). Its primary function was preservation: the oil and vinegar protect the anchovies and sauce for several days, in a world without refrigeration.

The contemporary twist : Serve as a 'pantry toast' on garlic-rubbed grilled bread, cicchetti-style, for a rustic aperitif.

Primo Levi · Charactorium