The Campanian Plain and the Bay of Naples

The Campanian Plain lies between the Tyrrhenian coast and the Apennine foothills, and curves round the Bay of Naples under the mass of Vesuvius. Francesconi's La Cucina Napoletana treats the cooking of Naples as the product of this meeting of fertile volcanic ground and a sheltered gulf, and it is within that frame that the table of the region is best read.

The ground of the plain is volcanic, built from the ash and tuff that Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields have laid down over a long span of time. Francesconi's account of Neapolitan cooking rests on the plain's abundance of vegetables, and the reader of her book finds a cuisine in which the garden is always close behind the kitchen. Tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum), aubergines, courgettes, peppers, broccoli and the leafy greens that the Neapolitans fry and stew in oil with garlic all belong to this land. The same soil carries vines, citrus and the orchards of the coastal slopes. The plain also supports the animals and the dairy that shape the table. Water buffalo are associated with the lowland of the Campanian coast, and the fresh cheeses made from their milk, mozzarella above all, are among the products by which the region is known beyond Italy. Wheat, and the dried pasta made from it, occupy a central place in Francesconi's picture of Naples, and the pasta of the towns along the bay, served with tomato, with vegetables or with the produce of the sea, is the everyday expression of plain and coast together. The bay supplies the second half of the cuisine. Its waters provide fish, molluscs and crustaceans, and the Neapolitan table uses them in the simple preparations that suit a fresh catch: cooked in sea water or in a little oil, with tomato, parsley and garlic, or fried. Mussels and clams are eaten with pasta, and small fish are fried whole. The restraint of these dishes follows from the quality of the raw material, and Francesconi's recipes keep to it. The climate unites the two. Mild winters and long dry summers, tempered by the sea, allow the tomato to ripen fully and the vegetable garden to yield through most of the year. The cook of the region therefore works with produce of strong flavour that needs little addition, and the cuisine that results is built on a few ingredients handled with attention to timing rather than elaboration. The protected origins of the region reflect this geography. Mozzarella di Bufala Campana is protected under DOP, and the tomatoes grown on the volcanic slopes around Vesuvius have their own protected designation as Pomodorino del Piennolo del Vesuvio DOP. These designations tie the product to the ground and the water from which it comes, and they confirm in law what the cooking of the bay had long assumed: that the plain and the sea are the source, and the kitchen their interpreter.

The flavour of the Campanian table is that of ripe tomato, olive oil, garlic and fresh sea produce, with the sweetness of the volcanic-grown vegetable set against the salt of the bay. Francesconi's dishes keep these elements distinct, so that the taste is of the ingredient and the place rather than of any sauce laid over it.