The Cappon Magro

It is an imaginative, opulent composition, rich in layers, flavors and aromas. Cappon magro is similar to a meatloaf of fish and vegetables, blended with salsa verde and arranged on salted galettes soaked in water and vinegar, garnished with shrimp and prawns. It usually has a conical shape to elevate it in height and is generally prepared in the family in the days leading up to Easter. The ancestor of the cappon magro is, the capponalda or capponada, a cold appetizer that combines vegetables with the sailor's galette, i.e., biscuit bread, long shelf life, once the daily food of ship crews. A quick recipe prepared by the ship's cook so as not to use any kind of pot during the rolling of the ship. The cappun magru (in dialect) was thus born from the inventiveness of enterprising and "gastronomes" sailors to recycle kitchen leftovers: vegetables already boiled, remnants of soup fish including capon precisely. Capon in Liguria is not capon, but red scorpionfish. The origin of the name is lost in time and reasonably can be linked to the ingredients that compose it: from the name of the fish at the base of the preparation precisely, or from the expression capón de galera, which indicates the galette soaked in water and vinegar, its other fundamental ingredient. To taste cappon magro Genoa is definitely the city that offers more meeting places, in which to have surprising gastronomic experiences between tradition and reinterpretation, past and present.