The first, and perhaps most important, thing you should know if you find yourself visiting the Ligurian coast of Italy is to never ever call focaccia a type of bread – unless you want to find yourself flamboyantly shooed out of a panificio (bakery) as I was last year after referring to the region’s specialty as such. The distinction is not in the ingredients but rather the place it takes in the meal: bread is an accompaniment, a side act used to mop up pasta sauce. Focaccia is the star of the show, a meal in itself, to be enjoyed for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert (dolloped with Nutella). Focaccia is, for Ligurians, a way of life.
I’ve written before about how food had a rather unceremonious place in my childhood and how it was upon moving to France that I discovered the beauty in its rituals through the local boulangerie. However, as a child growing up in Sydney in the ’90s, focaccia was one foreign delicacy that snuck its way onto my plate – though the version I knew was doughy on the inside, a little crusty, perhaps sprinkled with rosemary, if not decorated with multi-coloured cherry tomatoes. I destroyed any cultural import it could have had on my food education by toasting it and slathering it with butter and Vegemite (I will say that its signature honeycomb structure is great for hiding molten globs of butter).
So, when I travelled around Liguria last summer to discover the region where my partner grew up, I was shocked to find that traditional focaccia (Ligurians will defend to their grave that it was invented in their region, along with pesto) was a rather underwhelming affair – an oily, golden slab of not bread.
The writer has memories of eating focaccia with cherry tomatoes in the 1990s. Source: Jono Fleming
There were none of the fancy ‘garden’ trimmings I’d seen on social media during the baking frenzy of the COVID-19 lockdowns. Sometimes it was topped with lard or cheese or onions – but, in any event, it remained very beige.
Unlike my experience of Parisian boulangeries, which are protected by customs till everything becomes a sacred ritual, making and enjoying focaccia is a pastoral affair. Aside from the base ingredients, which never change, a local baker from the seaside town of Santa Margherita explained to me that he “speaks with Mother Nature on his way to work” to determine which flour he’ll use and the leavening time (in other words, he checks the humidity levels in the air for that day). It remains very much a manual process: the dough should be stretched by hand so as not to break the honeycomb structure and the signature holes should be gently padded into the dough using your fingertips.
Eating focaccia is locally accepted to be a messy affair: it is to be dunked in a milky cappuccino for breakfast, torn apart with hands amongst friends on the beach, or eaten piping hot from the oven on a street corner. (Local tip: eat it with the dimpled side down so that the olive oil and salt melt directly into your tongue.)
As I watched the locals enjoying their daily slice – perched on Vespas or church steps, napkins tucked into their collars to stop hot oil dripping down their fronts – I was reminded of a historical anecdote. When a Byzantine princess arrived in Venice in 1004 with a small golden fork to eat with, a local Venetian retorted that “God in his wisdom has provided man with natural forks – his fingers!”
Focaccia and cappuccino might be the quintessential Ligurian breakfast. Source: Madeleine Rothery
Focaccia is the star of the show, a meal in itself, to be enjoyed for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert (dolloped with Nutella). Focaccia is, for Ligurians, a way of life.
And perhaps herein lies the magic of Ligurian focaccia. For to feel the oily dimpled exterior, the lightness of the airy inside between your hands, between your lips, and then to lick your greasy, salty fingers as you savour every moment – its simplicity does become a heavenly delight. The time, patience, history that goes into its production, really is, palpable.
Love the story? Follow the author here: Instagram @mad.e.leiner
