When I was 22 I took a trip to Italy with my family and I had the most memorable bite of food in my life. It was a friselle topped with tomato, basil, garlic and olive oil. It might sound simple at first but it’s so much more than you can imagine.
We chartered a very tiny fishing boat in the small town of Gallipoli and a young tough captain took us on a day trip around the coast. He pulled out lunch that he was to prepare for us. He first opened a bag full of friselle. Friselle bread is a doughnut shaped cracker that has been double baked and is quite crunchy. They were perfect for sailors over the past hundred years because they kept extremely well during long voyages. However, what our captain did next will remain in my memory forever. He reached behind him off the boat and dunked this stale looking cracker straight into the ocean. He commented that that was how the sailors would “re-hydrate” this crunchy bread. He then opened a container with ripe and sliced tomatoes, delicious olive oil, basil, salt and pepper. He offhandedly mentioned that all of the ingredients came from his neighbor's garden as I was staring in awe.
When I bit into this simple but stunning friselle, while being rocked back and forth on the Ionian Sea and sipping a white wine, I felt a switch flip in my mind. Until that moment, I had never truly understood the power of simplicity. I had never realized that experiencing something in real time while learning the origins of that exact dish could bring me so much emotion. Now, ten years later, I find myself still describing this as the pivotal moment in my life, where food made more sense to me than ever.
So when I stopped by my local Italian Market and saw a bag of friselle my heart stopped. Although I couldn’t quite recreate the moment of our rugged sailor dipping our lunch into the sea, I could try my best and you can too…
Ingredients:
- One pack of friselle
- Some cherry tomatoes, local or from your garden will taste the best
- One garlic clove
- Bellemille olive oil
Optional:
- Fresh basil
- Dried oregano
- Anchovy
Preparation:
Slice tomatoes in half. Finely chop, or microplane the garlic. Combine in a bowl with salt and pepper to taste. Generously coat with Bellemille olive oil.
Here’s where you can choose your own adventure: I added basil to mix but you can add oregano or even a few anchovy filets as well.
Prepare a bowl with a cup of water. Sprinkle in about a half a tablespoon of kosher salt and stir until dissolved. Gently and quickly dunk each side of your friselle into the water, being careful not to over-soak the cracker or it will dissolve. Top your salt-water-dipped friselle with your tomatoes and add oregano or anchovies.
And now for the most important part:
Drizzle Bellemille olive oil all over your gorgeous sailors snack and enjoy!
