Enchanted Liguria

Along with food that is memorable for its simplicity, walking up hills and riding bicycles have kept the people of this Italian region in excellent health with many reputed to be 100 or older.

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Imagine a place where most people maintain excellent health and ride bicycles well into their 80s. Many live in colorfully painted houses that rise straight uphill from the coast and the people climb up and down steep stairways to visit neighbors, the church and the local market, where an endless supply of fresh, emerald-green pesto -- for which the region is known -- is always within arm's reach.

Such a delightful place is Liguria, the region of Italy that arcs along the Mediterranean just east of Nice. Since the 19th century, when the Romantic poets Byron and Shelley sang the praises of the Italian Riviera, Liguria has hardly gone unnoticed.

Yet a tourist, such as I was, visiting the region's coastal and mountain villages off season (from October through early April), experiences a remarkable sense of discovery. Ambling up and down the stone steps that make up the village streets, I felt as if I were stepping back in time. Wrinkled women dressed in black sat on stoops, basking in the midday sun. A white-aproned baker set her fresh vegetable tarts in a gleaming shop window. Fishermen mended nets in the town square as they have done for eons.

For good reason, the region has been called ``Enchanted Liguria'' (Rizzoli; 1997), by authors David Downie and Alison Harris. In their lavishly illustrated book, this husband and wife team have vividly captured the culture, history and daily life of this delightful place in pictures and words.

Any book on Liguria always emphasizes the fact that Genoese-born Christopher Columbus is the region's most famous native son. Columbus is a legendary reminder of the region's intimate connection with the sea. But that portion of the Mediterranean called the Mare Ligure is meager in riches, yielding mostly small fish like anchovies and sardines.

When I visited the small fishing village of Riva Trigoso -- a town reputed to have more 100 year olds than any other town in Liguria -- I sampled a tomato-thick fresh anchovy stew that is typical of this region's straightforward fare. This sampling was organized by the host of my trip, Oldways, a Boston-based organization devoted to documenting and preserving the food traditions of healthy populations all over the world. The vitality of those retired fishermen who prepared the stew for our group of 40 proved to me that Ligurians have figured out the secret of living long and healthy lives.

Part of the reason for their longevity is the fact that they are active, industrious people. Ascending from the coast, I saw miles of carefully terraced gardens farmed inch by patient inch. Like the sea, the rocky soil is not naturally generous in its bounty. In addition, the steep mountains prohibit the grazing of large animals, so meat in the Ligurian diet is restricted to the occasional consumption of chicken and rabbit.

From this relatively frugal larder, however, inventive cooks have created a cuisine so appealing that a major new cookbook has been devoted to capturing its essence: Fred Plotkin's ``Recipes from Paradise: Life and Food on the Italian Riviera'' (Little, Brown; 1997).

``Although it is often said that Ligurian soil is unyielding,'' writes Plotkin, who was a guide on the trip, ``the enterprising populace has nurtured enough vegetation to rival the Garden of Eden... . There are incomparable herbs and greens... . Vegetables include garlic, artichokes, the sweetest peas, the most buttery lettuces, and flavorful potatoes. After each rainfall, the hills are full of hunters gathering some of the most extraordinary fungi porcini.''

From these basic ingredients, Ligurian cooks turn out food that is memorable for its simplicity. The clean flavor of the primary vegetable in rustic artichoke pies or stuffed zucchini springs forward without obstruction.

Indeed, Ligurians take so much pride in the excellence of their vegetables that they will seek out and pay more for what they consider the very best, whether it be the purple-tinged artichokes from Albenga or the small, intensely flavored leaves of basil from Pra. In every market I visited, each fruit and vegetable was labeled with the place of origin, and the produce was so fresh and attractive that I found myself yearning for a kitchen to prepare them in.

Another reason for the straightforward and unmuddied taste of Ligurian food is that the dishes are entirely devoid of spices. Plotkin explains that since the sailors returning from long months at sea did not want any reminders of far-off places, wives and mothers confined their cooking to the produce of the region. Ligurians use a wide variety of local herbs, including basil, rosemary, marjoram and oregano, but they are always used with discretion and usually in supporting roles. One of the most distinctive regional dishes using fresh herbs is (ITAL) pansotti (uqTAL), a ravioli stuffed with a mixture of herbs and wild greens that is dressed with a simple walnut sauce.

It is also noteworthy that cooks of this region use almost no cream or butter and very little cheese. Ligurians are justly proud of their distinctive olive oil, which is pressed from Taggiasca olives, and forms the basis of dozens of simple sauces. This oil is also drizzled with abandon on the superb focaccia, available hot from every village (ITAL) focacceria (uqTAL). My personal favorite was the organic olive oil made by Franco Boeri in his Frantoio Roi. You may order it through the Internet at www.dmw.it/roi.htm, or from Zingerman's in New York at (888) 636-8162.

No account of Ligurian food would be complete without some discussion of pesto, the rich basil-and-nut sauce for which the region is justly known. Ligurians take their pesto very seriously, and no kitchen is without a large stone mortar and wooden pestle for preparing it by the traditional method.

When I watched pesto being made by Melly Solari of the restaurant Ca Peo, I saw that the basil was not so much pounded as pressed firmly against the sides of the mortar with a wrist motion of exquisite grace -- something like a miniature whirling dervish. Solari expressed extreme displeasure that a well-known American newspaper reporter printed a blender version of the restaurant's recipe.

``Basil is a noble herb,'' she explained in Italian, ``and it should never come in contact with steel.''

Oldways Preservation & Exchange Trust hosts a number of projects each year, some of which are international. For example, in November The Foods of Prehistory & Lessons for Healthy Eating Today symposium will be held in Perigueux, France. And London will be the host city for the 1999 International Conference on the Mediterranean Diet in April.

For information and prices, contact Oldway, 25 First St., Cambridge, MA 02141; tel. (617) 621-3000, fax (617) 621-1230. Or on the Web, www.oldwayspt.org.

(Lorna J. Sass is the author of ``The New Soy Cookbook,'' Chronicle Books, 1998.)

© 1998, Lorna J. Sass. Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate.