Il Secondo e il Contorno

The division of the Italian meal into a secondo of meat or fish and a contorno of vegetables is set out in the arrangement of Pellegrino Artusi's La Scienza in Cucina, first published in 1891, whose chapters follow the order of the table: broths and soups, pasta, then the fish, the meats, the roasts and the vegetable dishes. Artusi, a Romagnol who lived in Florence, drew on the kitchens of Tuscany and Romagna, and his book is the first to gather the practice of the Italian household into one national reference. The secondo takes its name simply from its place after the primo, and the contorno from the Italian verb contornare, to surround, since the vegetable was originally set about the principal dish.

In Artusi's arrangement the secondo is the centre of the meal after the first course of soup or pasta, and it is given to meat, poultry, game or fish, cooked by roasting, braising, frying or boiling. His chapters on lesso, on arrosto and on fritto treat these as distinct techniques, each with its own rules of fire and timing, and he writes of them as matters a household cook could master by attention rather than by expense. The boiled meat of the lesso, served with a sauce, and the roast turned and basted with care are the models from which the course takes its character. The contorno is the vegetable that accompanies the secondo, and Artusi gives it a section of its own rather than leaving it as an afterthought. Spinach, cardoons, artichokes, peas, beans, potatoes and the cabbages are dressed with oil, butter or lemon, or stewed in a little liquid, and the choice is made to answer the principal dish: a plain vegetable beside a rich meat, a sharper one beside something fried. The word suggests that the vegetable serves the secondo, yet in Artusi's pages the dishes are often complete in themselves and are described with the same precision as the meats. The two courses are therefore a pair, and the order in which they arrive matters to the sense of the meal. In the traditional Italian service the secondo is brought first and the contorno follows or sits beside it, so that each is eaten for its own flavour and not as a mixture on one plate. This habit separates the Italian table from the single composed plate of other traditions, and it keeps the vegetable at its own temperature and seasoning. Artusi's attention to season and to economy shapes the whole course. He advises the cook to buy what is in its time, to use the cheaper cuts with patience, and to turn the remains of one day's lesso into the next day's dish, as in the polpette and the rifreddo he describes. The secondo of an ordinary household was thus modest in quantity, and the vegetable carried much of the nourishment of the meal. The pattern he records, a measured portion of meat or fish with one or two vegetables, remains the framework from which the Italian restaurant and home menu is still built.

The pairing works by contrast. The secondo carries the fat and savour of roasting, braising or frying, and the contorno answers it with the bitterness of greens, the sweetness of peas or the acidity of lemon and oil. Eaten in turn rather than together, each keeps its own taste, and the vegetable clears the palate for the next piece of meat.