Vicenza-style cod: the official recipe of the Venerable Confraternity
It's not just a dish, cod Vicenza-style (or rather, cod with just one C, to use the word Vicenza-style) is a cult: a dish that tells many stories and demonstrates how cuisine can unite very distant worlds.
- 1 kg of dried stockfish
- 250 g of onions
- ½ liter of non-fruity olive oil
- 3 or 4 salted sardines
- ½ liter of fresh milk
- a little flour
- 50 g of grated Parmesan cheese
- a sprig of parsley
- sale
- baby
- Soak the well-battered stockfish in cold water, changing the water every 4 hours, for 2 to 3 days. Remove part of the skin.
- Open the fish lengthwise, remove the backbone and all the bones. Cut it into square pieces, preferably equal in size. Finely slice the onions; sauté in a small pan with a cup of oil, add the desalted, boned, and chopped sardines; finally, with the heat off, add the chopped parsley.
- Flour the various pieces of stockfish, drizzle them with the prepared soffritto, then arrange them side by side in a terracotta or aluminum pan, or in a baking dish (on the bottom of which you've previously poured a few spoonfuls of soffritto). Cover the fish with the remaining soffritto, adding the milk, Parmesan, salt, and pepper.
- Add oil until all the pieces are coated, smoothing them out. Cook over very low heat for about 4 1/2 hours, shaking the pan occasionally but never stirring. In the local dialect, this cooking phase is called "pipare." Only experience will determine the exact doneness of the stockfish, which may vary in consistency from piece to piece.
- Serve piping hot with sliced polenta: Vicenza-style cod is excellent even after resting for 12-14 hours.
If we love it so much, it's also thanks to Sandrigo, in the province of Vicenza, and its Pro Sandrigo, the organization founded in 1953 that organizes the most famous of themed festivals: the Festa del Bacalà alla Vicentina (Vicenza-style Bacalà Festival), which this year takes place from September 17th to 28th, preceded as always by several events. Above all, the Gran Galà del Bacalà (Bacalà Grand Gala): a special dinner on September 15th, with a seven-course menu retracing the history of cod's arrival in the Veneto region.
How cod arrived in Italy
It's 1431, and the Venetian merchant Pietro Querini set sail from Crete with a ship loaded with wine and spices for Flanders. His vessel is shipwrecked, and the few survivors, using a lifeboat, manage to reach a small, snow-covered island 100 kilometers from the Arctic Circle: the Lofoten Islands. They survive by eating shellfish until the inhabitants of a nearby island, Røst, notice them and save them by feeding them their "Stockfiss," dried Atlantic cod. Querini brings a large quantity back to Venice, and the success is such that trade has continued uninterrupted ever since.
Besides being tasty and practical, stockfish was inexpensive, and for the people of Vicenza, who were among those who appreciated it most, it soon became an alternative to fish. The Council of Trent's (1563) call for abstinence from meat did the rest, contributing to the spread of cod and thus also to the birth of dishes like bacalà alla vicentina.
The brotherhood and the official recipe
The best recipe for it is the one you'll find at the end of the article. It's the one codified by the Venerabile Confraternita del Bacalà alla Vicentina, founded in 1987: a group of experts who, among other things, thanks to historical research, have developed the instructions for preparing this dish according to tradition.
What is eaten and what is done at the Cod Festival?
Of course, Vicenza-style bacalà, prepared strictly according to this recipe with PGI Lofoten Stockfish, will be the star of the Bacalà Festival, but there will also be many other dishes, such as gnocchi, bigoli al torcio, gourmet pizza, and this year's new dish: bacalà ravioli. There will also be many collateral activities. Among the most anticipated events, on September 29th, is the musical "Note sulla Via Querinissima," composed by Alberto La Rocca and performed by nearly one hundred students from the Giacomo Zanella School in Sandrigo and the Musikmittelschule in Axams, Austria. Also noteworthy is the group exhibition curated by Ugo Bianchi, titled "Faded Memories," which will feature the works of eighteen Venetian artists, both native and adopted, in the rooms of Villa Sesso Schiavo in Sandrigo. Another new podcast is "Bacalà Stories": a five-episode narrative that explores the life of Pietro Querini and the fishing and preparation methods of Lofoten stockfish. The full program is available at festadelbaccala.com. The brotherhood's recipe for Vicenza-style bacalà follows.
