Most Italians in the first waves of immigration had been too poor to have eaten much sausage in Italy. Early records of the immigrant communities include recollections such as one southern Italian’s first tasting pork when he joined a lumber camp in Maine.

Nevertheless, contadini would have been pressed into service on the day their padrone decided to butcher a pig. The padrone may well have rewarded his staff, allowing them small portions of meat to take home. Religious holidays in Italy were also opportunities for the well-off to extend some largesse to their workers and servants, who were sometimes allotted meat for festive meals.

New Italian immigrants who may have had sausage-making skills saved their money and dreamed of the day when they might open macellerie, butcher shops, in a world where meat was an everyday commodity. In the meantime, they may have convinced established German-American butchers to add a bit of fennel seed or dried basil to a batch of sausage stuffing.

Among the Italians who realized their dreams, Eduardo Faicco established his first shop on in Greenwich Village in 1900. G. Esposito & Sons started the Jersey Pork Store in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn in 1920. John Landi, one of Esposito’s early employees, subsequently opened Landi’s Brooklyn Pork Store in 1928. All three shops continue to thrive today. The latter two stores have adapted to the American scene with something unimaginable four generations ago: they have Websites. Such sites seem to portend a vigorous virtual life for the Little Italys, extending their real estate into cyberspace.

We’re not certain where the irresistible pairing of Sausage and Peppers first occurred, but our research confirms that southern Italian immigrants were celebrating their “marriage” before Prohibition at the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Italian Harlem.

The first Italian-American sausages were probably grilled over an open fire. The 1950′s saw panel trucks equipped with propane stoves for roadside diners—what mobile cooks still use at construction sites and factory parking lots. Liquid propane, the cooking fuel of today’s street festival griddles, didn’t find its way into practical use for gas-powered grills until the 1960′s.

Outdoor grilling imbues the sausages with the spirit of summer, but the dish is also delicious and easily made indoors—in a single skillet.

Ingredients:

8 Links sweet or hot Italian sausages (or a combination of the two)
2 Tbs. Olive oil
4 Cloves garlic, peeled and thinly sliced
4 Red or Green bell peppers, seeded and cut lengthwise into half-inch strips
2 Medium yellow onions, thinly sliced
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
3 Tbs. coarsely chopped Italian parsley

Preparation:

Parcook the sausages in enough water to cover, for approximately 8 minutes. Drain and reserve.

Heat a large sauté pan over medium heat, then add the olive oil. Add the sausages and cook, turning occasionally until they begin to brown. Add the garlic, peppers and onions, stirring and shaking the pan to coat them with olive oil. Season with salt and pepper, and cook, stirring occasionally until the peppers are wilted; approximately fifteen minutes.

To Serve:

Divide among four plates and garnish with the parsley.

Serves four

Even so, nothing appeared especially mysterious… yet we knew of no other Italian dish that paired chicken and sausage. After what amounted to real sleuthing, we did find Pollo con Salsicie, Chicken with Sausages in a 1919 volume published in New York: The Italian Cookbook, The Art of Eating Well, compiled by Mrs. Maria Gentile. As culinary historians, we’ve learned that recipes rarely spring up fully developed overnight; rather, they evolve.

We and many other commentators on the development of an Italian-American cuisine have written about the early 20th century phenomenon of men designated as “stay-at-home” cooks. Italian men, leaving their families behind in Italy while they sought work in America, often banded together, either in tenements or work camps. Pooling resources to stretch their budgets, they would chose one man to shop and cook for the rest of them.

An Italian “fraternity cook” might never have learned the subtle applications of herbs and spices that would have been passed down from Nonna to granddaughter. Furthermore, in American mill towns populated by other ethnic groups, ingredients like dried oregano and fennel seed may have been difficult to acquire. Nonetheless, there were other devices a cook could use to give his meals the flavor of home. Even a piece of kielbasa or andouille would have had the tastes of pork, garlic, black pepper, and perhaps anise, that could approximate Italian seasoning. And if there were indeed an Italian butcher, well, there would have been Italian sausages laced with fennel seed and red pepper flakes.

While the Italian male cooks may have lacked kitchen finesse, they knew from back home that a tiny bit of pancetta or salami could flavorfully enrich an entire pot of beans. Sausage, fatty and seasoned, stood in—not only for the cooking fat of a cured pork product—but also for the spices and herbs used in the Mezzogiorno. It is ironic that meat, the most precious ingredient back in Italy, could have replaced what would have been the cheapest elements of a meal: the home-grown or foraged seasonings.

And it’s easy to comprehend how wine came into the dish. Even in America, those early chickens would have been tough birds that benefited from the tenderizing effect of a little vino. And vino was readily available, no matter what the immigrant’s financial condition. The pungent peppers, a New World fruit that had gone from South and Central America to the Mediterranean and back, were very likely home-pickled in vinegar, in an earthenware crock. The salt, acidity, and heat from the pickling liquid added yet another dimension to braised chicken already seasoned by sausages.

Various sources theorize about the origins of the name of the dish. Is it “shoemaker-style” because a cobbler might have eaten this dish or because the dish was “cobbled together” from ingredients common to a poor man’s larder? Pino Luongo suggests that the name is derived from scarpetta, a piece of bread that would have been used to soak up the wonderful sauce.

Most intriguing is a comment by the late Pierre Franey, writing about Shoemaker’s Chicken in The New York Times (1977).

We’ve found confirmation of this slang usage in The Urban Dictionary:

We feel differently: that the name implies a true compliment. Scarpariello, may well have been a testament to the resourcefulness of immigrant cooks who achieved such seductive flavor from so few ingredients.

Ingredients:

2 – 3 Tbs. Olive oil
4 Links Italian sausage (about 1 lb)
2 ½ — 3 Lb. Frying chicken cut into 8 pieces (or 8 chicken thighs, skin-on)
1 Medium yellow onion, finely diced
4 Cloves garlic, peeled, and sliced thinly
1/2 tsp. peperoncini (hot red pepper flakes)
1 Cup dry white wine
2/3 Cup pickling liquid from the cherry peppers
6 to 8 pickled hot cherry peppers–seeded and coarsely chopped
2 Tbs. Fresh oregano, finely chopped
4 Tbs. Flat-leaf Italian parsley, finely chopped
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
Juice and grated rind of 1 lemon
4 Tbs. Flat-leaf Italian parsley, finely chopped

Preparation:

Heat a large sauté pan over medium heat, then add just enough olive oil to cover the bottom. Add the sausages and sauté, regulating the heat to reduce spattering. Turn regularly until they’ve browned; about 8 minutes. Remove and reserve.

Add the chicken pieces to the sauté pan and cook, turning occasionally, until the pieces are golden brown all over; about 15 minutes. Remove the chicken pieces from the pan and reserve on a plate, covering them with aluminum foil.

Add the onions, garlic, and red pepper flakes; sauté until the onion has wilted.

Raise the heat to high, and add the wine. Boil for about 2 minutes, stirring with a wooden spoon to loosen any bits of chicken and sausage that have caramelized on the bottom of the pan.

Lower the heat to a simmer and add the pickling liquid, the cherry peppers, the oregano, and parsley. Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper as necessary. Simmer for four or five minutes to concentrate the sauce.

While the liquid is simmering, cut the sausages into rounds. Return the sausages and chicken to the pan, and allow to simmer for about 12 minutes. Grate the lemon rind. Add the rind and lemon juice to the pan and simmer for another minute or two.

To Serve:

Remove the chicken and sausage pieces to a platter; cover with the sauce and garnish with the remaining parsley. Many neighborhood restaurants serve Chicken Scarpariello as main dish, without a “side order” of pasta. You may follow their lead, but have plenty of good crusty bread on hand to be sure diners can mop up the delectable sauce.

Serves four

It is well-documented that Tuscan Sirio Maccione, owner of Le Cirque, invented Pasta Primavera in 1978. Entertaining a clutch of food writers, chefs, and other gourmets at his Upper East Side establishment, then considered one of New York’s prime “frog ponds” (high-end French restaurants), Signor Maccione devised a spur-of-the-moment dish of pasta. The story goes that a meeting turned into lunch and the maestro went into his kitchen, foraged among the prep stations, and created a new dish.

“What do you call this?” asked one of the happy diners.

Since he had used asparagus, baby peas, and tiny green beans, the restaurateur replied, “Pasta Primavera,” referring to the spring vegetables. Signor Maccione’s caprice was an instant hit.

Like many skilled, spontaneous cooks, the creator gave his dish no further thought. However, one of the guests happened to have been Craig Claiborne—then food editor for The New York Times—who promptly wrote an article about this “spectacular” new “northern Italian” preparation.

Within a week, hip and well-heeled New Yorkers were clamoring for Pasta Primavera. However, that spontaneous creation wasn’t on the menu—not yet anyway. Hurried meetings and tastings were convened. Soon, Le Cirque’s chefs had a replicable version of that first Pasta Primavera. In the meantime, the restaurant’s clientele learned to order it “off the menu.” Pasta Primavera attained star status on the cover of the premier edition of Food & Wine Magazine in 1978.

In the final quarter of the 20th century, greater numbers of American tourists traveling to Europe—especially to Italy—gained an awareness of northern Italian food. The perception that the subtle northern sauces made with butter and cream were “lighter” made them fashionable and gave them a marketing edge over the familiar Italian-American red sauces. (In fact, many “white” northern sauces are considerably more caloric than southern tomato sauces).

The inclusion of so many different vegetables in a pasta preparation is a dead giveaway that this dish was invented here. Chinese-American restaurateurs learned to make economical use of seven or eight colorful vegetables in the same chicken stir-fry, while back-home, Chinese dishes tended to highlight a single vegetable. The same restraint is characteristic of traditional Italian combinations of pasta with verdure, vegetables. Pasta with broccoli, pasta with asparagus or baby peas, but never with so many varied primizie, the earliest and often most costly baby vegetables. That such a number of fresh ingredients would be joined by yet more costly mushrooms, pine nuts, olive oil, cream, butter…and cheese(!) would be comically bewildering to any Italian. Nonetheless, this dish is a glorious expression of excess.

Signor Maccione may be a native of Montecatini in Tuscany, but Pasta Primavera could only have happened here. Whether you call this Almost Italian… Almost Northern Italian… North American Northern Italian… or just “Delicious!”—here is a meal that celebrates spring!

Ingredients:

1 Oz. Dried porcini
1 Cup warm water
½ Lbs. asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
¼ Lbs. green beans cut into 1-in. pieces
¾ Cup frozen baby peas, thawed
2 Cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
½ tsp. Crushed red pepper flakes
4 Tbs. Extra-virgin olive oil
1 Lbs. Spaghetti or Linguine
4 Tbs. Unsalted butter
2/3 Cup heavy cream
1 tsp. Finely grated fresh lemon zest
1 Cup freshly grated Parmigiano
¼ Cup finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
¼ Cup finely chopped fresh basil
1/3 Cup pine nuts, lightly toasted
Additional Parmigiano

Preparation:

Soak the porcini in warm water in a small bowl for 30 minutes. Remove from the water, squeezing the excess liquid back into the bowl. Pour the soaking liquid through a sieve lined with a dampened paper towel into a small bowl and reserve. Rinse the porcini to remove any grit, then squeeze dry, and chop coarsely.

Cook the asparagus and beans in a 6- to 8-quart pot of boiling salted water for 3 minutes. Add the peas and cook until the beans and asparagus are just tender, about 1 – 2 minutes more. Transfer the vegetables to a bowl of ice and cold water to halt their cooking. Reserve the water in the pot for cooking the pasta. Drain the cooled vegetables in a colander.

Heat a large sauté pan over medium-low heat and add the olive oil. Add the minced garlic, and the pepperoncino, and sauté for about 1 minute, until the garlic becomes fragrant. Add the drained vegetables, season with salt and pepper, and cook, stirring, for about 2 minutes, then transfer to a bowl.

Return the water in the pot to a boil and cook the pasta until al dente. Drain the pasta in a colander. Add the butter, cream, lemon zest, and porcini to the now-empty, but still warm pasta pot and simmer for 2 minutes. Stir in the cheese and add the pasta, tossing to coat and adding as much of reserved porcini soaking liquid as necessary (1/2 to 2/3 cup) to keep the pasta well coated. Add the green vegetables, parsley, basil, and pine nuts. Taste for seasoning, add salt and pepper as necessary, and toss to combine.

To Serve:

Divide the pasta among six warmed plates and garnish with Parmigiano shavings.

Serves six

When Italian immigrants opened their urban eateries, their clientele included significant numbers of German and Irish immigrants who had more interest in pasta with tomato sauce than in still-identifiable vegetables sautéed with garlic and olive oil. (One might dispute whether tomato sauce itself is a vegetable, but we’ll leave that to contemporary politicians wrangling over nutrition in school lunch programs.)

Even today, Rao’s Restaurant, arguably the most exclusive Italian-American restaurant in the Western Hemisphere, serves only four cooked vegetable “sides:” rapini (broccoli rabe), broccoli, Savoy cabbage, and escarole.

Yet, Italians loved vegetables and were skillful gardeners who introduced several Old World vegetables to Americans—notably, broccoli, fennel, zucchini, and escarole. And while the new immigrants were able to enjoy semolina pasta and meat far more often than they had in Italy, their cucina casalinga still centered on vegetables and pulses.

For evenings at home when neither pasta nor meat were on the menu, Italian-Americans often cooked some form of “beans and greens.” Back in Italy, the greens were likely to have been foraged—wild dandelions, borage, sorrel—whatever local goats and sheep had not yet nibbled. But here, southern Italian immigrants combined cannellini with spinach or escarole to make a dish that was neither contorno, vegetable dish, nor zuppa, soup.

As neighborhood restaurants gentrified, expanding their menus to include separate antipasto and soup courses, they began to offer variant forms of Minestrone, Pasta e Fagiole, as well a Scarola e Fagiole, a thick soup of escarole and beans.

By the 1980′s, as Americans became more conscious of the much-vaunted Mediterranean Food Pyramid, Escarole and Bean Soup, along with nothing more than a piece of good crusty bread, attained status as a trendy, complete, and virtuous meal.

Note: We use water rather than chicken stock, although you’re welcome to use either. Generally, the only time Nonna would have used chicken stock in a soup would have been when she had just boiled a stewing fowl. Like all good cooks, she would have found a use for the flavorful broth.

Escarole and Beans

Ingredients:

2-3 Tbsp. Olive oil
3 – 4 Cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1 Head escarole, approximately 1 Lb., washed and chopped into bite-sized pieces
2 14 oz. cans cannellini, drained and rinsed
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
Freshly grated Parmesan
Slices of rustic bread

Preparation:

Heat a soup pot over medium-high heat and add enough olive oil to cover the bottom. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes and sauté for a minute or two. Add the escarole and stir to coat with the oil. Sauté, stirring occasionally, until the escarole begins to wilt.

Stir in the beans. Lower the heat, add up to a cup of water (more if you prefer it soupier), season with salt and pepper, and simmer for five to ten minutes.

To Serve:

Divide equally among four soup bowls, drizzle a little more olive oil over each serving, and garnish with the Parmesan. Serve with a slice of good crusty bread. Or, garnish with homemade croutons.

Serves four

On the Italian-American culinary time-line, chicken wings have come to roost only recently. Their origins are unambiguous. Witnesses and anecdotal sources disagree only as to whether it was the owner, Frank Bellissimo, or his wife,Teresa, who actually invented Buffalo Chicken Wings in 1964 at their Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York. Certainly, no one disputes that the Anchor Bar hatched the combination of hot sauce, celery, and blue cheese dressing as accompaniments for fried chicken wings. The wings quickly secured a place in mid-century American bar culture, and their proliferation has been rapid.

Like Spaghetti with Meatballs before them, chicken wings first had their broadest appeal for non-Italians. In fact, they’ve given rise to an entire genre of restaurant dedicated to chicken wings. The marquee outside one very popular Sarasota restaurant recently proclaimed Buffalo Chicken Focaccia is Back! I don’t know when it arrived nor when it departed, but I’m sorry that it has returned. (In fact, I thought about calling the American-Italian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Focaccia.) Anyway, I think you see my point…

Nevertheless, chicken wings fit into the Italian-American dining style because they fill the need for “just a little something” before the main meal. Their delectable flavor inspires conversation among friends, and if you exercise a degree of restraint, they won’t impede your enjoyment of the meal to come.

When I was in graduate school, I fell in with a crowd that liked a cookout from time to time. In fact, they liked a cookout for nearly every meal. So one afternoon, I thought I’d share with them my grandfather’s technique for grilled marinated chicken. But a grad student budget precluded a chicken banquet, so I bought several pounds of chicken wings, marinated them, and tossed them onto the grill. My Sicilian grandfather’s classic was reborn as my Patented Tuscan Chicken Wings, a name I had to conjure on the spot when someone asked what I called them. Since those days, my Tuscan Chicken Wings have become my passport to any gathering that involves more than two people and a charcoal grill.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I should make clear that my wings are neither patented, nor Tuscan, nor even Italian. However, beginning in the 1970′s, calling anything Tuscan gave it an air of rustic charm while branding it as hip.

Although my grandfather had used red wine to marinate his chicken, my marinade is similar to a recipe using red wine vinegar that I’d found in my first serious Italian food book, The Cooking of Italy by Waverly Root (published in 1968 as one volume of the Time-Life Foods of the World series).

When you prepare this recipe, be sure to buy more chicken wings than you think you’ll need. I’ve never seen leftovers.

My “Patented Tuscan” Chicken Wings

Ingredients:

3 Lbs. Chicken wings
1 Head garlic, cloves separated, peeled, and sliced thinly
½ Bunch flat-leaf Italian parsley, leaves and stems, chopped finely
2 Cups red wine vinegar
Salt & freshly-ground black pepper

Preparation:

If necessary, cut the chicken wings into two pieces. Marinate, covered, with the garlic, parsley, and vinegar for two hours at room temperature.

Start a charcoal fire, and when it has burned to embers, that is to say, when the coals have a uniform gray coating around them, and you are unable to hold your open palm a few inches above the fire for a count of five, grill the wings for about four minutes per side.

Season with salt and pepper, and serve immediately.

Serves from one to four

Virtually all lines of inquiry have lead me to sources that agree on who invented Clams Casino. But for Almost Italian, the more burning question is yet to be definitively answered: How did Clams Casino become established on the menus of neighborhood Italian restaurants?

Research leaves little doubt that Clams Casino were created in 1917 by German-born Julius Keller, maitre d’ at The Casino on Narragansett Pier, in coastal Rhode Island. During the period, shoreline casinos were basically clubs and ballrooms, not gaming parlors. Narragansett challenged Newport as a fashionable summertime resort. It appears that a reigning socialite, Mrs. Paran Stevens, wanted something unique for a luncheon she had booked at The Casino; Mr. Keller obliged.

As to how a blue-blood caprice became so popular at red-sauce emporia, I got a hint from the July 8, 2005 edition of The Narragansett Times. Matthew Conyer, writing about the 100th anniversary of The Casino, retells the story of the invention of Clams Casino (corroborated by food historians at Johnson & Wales University). And along the way, I think Mr. Conyer gave me the answer to my question when he writes about the popular orchestras of the Big Band Era, like Tommy Dorsey and Glen Miller, coming through Narragansett to play for dances at The Casino…

At the time, Big Bands included significant numbers of Italian-American musicians: Tony Pastor (Pestritto), Louis Prima, Vido Musso, and Charlie Ventura, to name a very few. I feel perfectly comfortable with the thought that the musicians enjoyed Clams Casino in Rhode Island and took the recipe back to their Little Italy communities when they came home from the road.

The fact that Clams Casino combines bacon with shellfish and sweet red peppers suggests that Mr. Keller was familiar with Portuguese cooking, in which bivalves, shrimp, and squid are frequently married with pork, both fresh and cured. Long before Mr. Keller’s time, southeastern New England had boasted thriving fishing fleets and had been home to mariners of Portuguese descent. Large Portuguese-speaking communities remain in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, despite the decline of the fleets.

Below are two versions of Clams Casino. In the first, chopped onions and fresh red peppers are sautéed in butter before they’re combined with the remaining topping ingredients.

In the second rendition, pickled pimiento replaces fresh red pepper, and the frying step is omitted.

Clams Casino I

Ingredients:

4 Rashers (thick slices) bacon
1 Small onion, finely chopped
1 Red bell pepper, finely diced
Freshly ground black pepper
3/4 Stick unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
Juice of ½ lemon
2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
Tabasco sauce
24 Littleneck or Cherrystone clams, shucked and left on the half-shell
3/4 Cup breadcrumbs
3 Cups rock salt* (optional) to use as a bed for the clams
1 Lemon, quartered

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 400 F.

Fry the bacon strips until they just begin to become crisp. (You’ll be cooking them more in the oven.) Remove from the sauté pan and cut into approximately 1 in. pieces.

Pour off all but approximately 2 Tbs. of the fat from the sauté pan. (Note: 4 strips of bacon may not render 2 Tbs. of fat. If not, add additional butter to make 2 Tbs. in order to sauté the vegetables.)

Sauté the onions and peppers in the bacon fat until tender. Season with pepper as they’re cooking. Remove the pan from the heat and allow vegetables to cool.

In a bowl, combine 1/2 stick of the butter, the lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco to taste, and the sautéed vegetables.

Melt 1/4 stick of butter in a small sauté pan. Toss the breadcrumbs in the butter, then remove from the heat.

Lay the clams in their shells on a sheet pan.^* Top each clam with a portion of the butter/vegetable mixture, followed by about 1 tsp. of the breadcrumbs. Finish by topping each clam with a piece or two of the bacon.

Bake in the middle of the oven until lightly browned and bubbling, approximately 10 minutes. Serve immediately with lemon wedges.

Serves four.

^* Rock salt spread 1/2 in deep on the sheet pan is useful to keep the clams balanced; it does not affect the taste or saltiness of the finished clams. The salt may be stored in an airtight container and reused.

Clams Casino II

Here’s another variation. Neither the vegetables, nor the bacon, are precooked. Instead, all ingredients are baked simultaneously. This recipe is distinguished by the inclusion of anchovy paste, which, in my opinion, really enhances the flavor of the clams.

Ingredients:

24 Cherrystone or Littleneck clams, shucked and left on the half-shell
1/2 Cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
4 Tbs. Pimiento, julienned, then diced
4 Tbs. Green pepper, finely diced
4 Tbs. Celery, minced
1/2 Cup bread crumbs
1 1/2 tsp. Anchovy paste
4 Rashers (thick slices) bacon, cut into 1 inch pieces
3 Cups rock salt (optional; see recipe above)
1 Lemon, quartered

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 400 F.

Lay the clams in their shells on a sheet pan.

In a small bowl, combine the butter, pimiento, green pepper, celery, breadcrumbs, and anchovy paste. Spread this mixture over the open clams.

Cover each clam with a bacon piece and bake for about 10 minutes, or until the mixture is bubbling. Serve at once with lemon wedges.

Serves four.

Photo courtesy of Brave Heart at Flickr

Whether written as calamare, in proper Italian, or with various Almost Italian spellings, deep-fried squid are popular fare at street festivals in Little Italy communities all over America. Typically, the food concession will have have a large container full of seasoned flour. Cut-up squid rings and tentacles are tossed into the flour and immediately scooped out with a mesh strainer. The cook shakes the strainer to sift away excess flour before dropping the squid into a deep-fryer. When the coating has browned, the squid are removed from the oil and drained before they go into a serving-size cardboard container with a slice of lemon.

Calamare fritti Americani have evolved from stand-up street food to sit-down appetizer at neighborhood Italian restaurants. Again, garnished with lemon, and possibly a sprinkling of parsley, the crispy squid are also presented with a little dish of marinara sauce for dipping.

In Rhode Island and Massachusetts, a few restaurants serve Calamare Fritti con Peperoncini. Just before serving, slices of pickled hot peppers (yellow, chartreuse or red cherry peppers) are scattered liberally over the hot squid.

Although, I’ve eaten fried calamare in Italy, I’ve never seen them served solo. They always seem to be a component of fritto misto di mare, ‘deep-fried mixed seafood,’ which usually includes small bait fish and shrimp as well. So, the recipe below has some clear Italian lineage. But whether deep-fried squid sleep alone, with the fishes, or atop a bed of Caesar Salad, in my book, they are ‘almost (but not quite) Italian.’

Ingredients:

1 lb. Baby squid
Flour for dredging, seasoned with salt & pepper (3/4 to 1 cup)
2-3 Cups canola or other neutral oil* for frying
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
2 Lemons, cut into wedges
Chopped flat-leaf parsley (optional)
5-6 Pickled, sliced peperoncini or cherry peppers (optional)

* Fifty years ago, in both the US and in Italy, the frying oil would probably have been ordinary olive oil, but changing tastes and cost have made more cooks opt for seed oils. Oils like canola, sunflower, and corn also have the benefit of being able to withstand higher temperatures. Deep-frying at higher temperatures tends to reduce the amount of oil absorbed by the frying food.

Preparation:

Clean the squid well, removing the ink sack, quill-shaped cartilage, eyes, and innards from the head. Wash and pat dry with a paper towel. Cut the bodies into half-inch rings, but leave the circle of tentacles in one piece.

If you own a deep-fryer, follow the manufacturer’s directions. Otherwise, in a saucepan, heat approximately 2 inches of oil to 375 F.

Note: the oil should not come more than half way up the sides of the pan.

The easiest way to flour the squid rings is to place them, with seasoned flour, in a paper bag. Close the top of the bag and shake. Remove the squid from the bag and strain in a fine, wire-mesh strainer to remove the excess flour.

In two or three batches, fry the floured squid in the hot oil until golden. Remove from the oil with a slotted spoon or strainer and drain on paper towels. Garnish with lemon wedges, parsley, and peperoncini. Serve immediately.

Serves four as an appetizer.