Bigoli in salsa: a Venetian timeless recipe

for a dish of whole wheat spaghetti with anchovy sauce

Whenever I am asked about the typical Venetian recipes, my list punctually starts with "bigoli in salsa". For me, in fact, this is the ultimate pasta dish.

Bigoli, are a type of thick, fresh spaghetti made just with two basic ingredients: whole wheat flour and water, and their origin seems to date back to the 1600s.
Originally the fresh dough was kneaded at home and then hand-pressed through a specific pasta machine with large holes to get some very thick and long spaghetti, but in more recent times it's common practice to use the dry bigoli you can find at the supermarket.

I have many memories associated with this recipe, but the most vivid one for sure is the one about my grandmother Edera, in her dark kitchen, a typical old Venetian kitchen with vaulted windows overlooking a narrow calle of Rialto, where the light struggled to enter even in the central hours of the day.
I remember it was a hell of a mess. In the pantry, there were so many open and unfinished packages of pasta that would have been enough for a whole year. Nonna liked the new pasta packages, just bought at the supermarket of her Sestiere, maybe because they gave her the impression that the pasta was fresher, just like when she was a child and she can buy it unpacked at the *biavarol, bringing it home wrapped in a piece of newspaper.

* Biavarol: typical Venetian word. They are the ancient sellers of cereals, legumes, and staple foods. Going from the biavarol meant going to the grocery store.

This recipe for me is the essence of traditional Venetian cuisine, ancient and rich, but basically simple, because simple are the ingredients and the method of preparation handed down from one generation to another for centuries.
Each Venetian family has perfected its own recipe, and there are endless variations of what is actually a poor dish, affordable for everyone.

This recipe to me is the typical dish you can always make with ingredients that usually never fail in an Italian kitchen, even when you do not go shopping for a month: spaghetti, white onions, and anchovies are the essentials.
I ended up making this recipe hundreds of times not only because the ingredients were always available, but because it is a constant success among my friends - foreign ones especially - "foresti" as Nonna said.

I really like how this dish, for me so intimately connected to the history of my family, is traveling with my friends, thus reaching the kitchens of other countries.
Have been precisely my foreign friends' enthusiasm for this dish that reminded me that your own food culture - especially when it's ancient and rooted in your family traditions - can be inspirational and novelty for many others, it is heritage and knowledge, and at the same time also an intimate way of sharing part of what we are.

So here I am to share my family's recipe to prepare this dish.
The same one that filled my Nonna's kitchen with that intense scent of onion fried into old consumed pans. The same scent that came out of the windows and spread along the street, when I was arriving for lunch and I knew my Nonna was waiting for me. The same scent that now, years later, reminds me of her and that ancient Venetian world that now is disappearing, made of strong smells, messy kitchens, and recipes handed down to voice among the most absurd stories, now become legendary, like this dish.

BIGOLI IN SALSA

Ingredients:
(Serves 4)

• 380 g dry wholegrain bigoli (or just choose the thickest spaghetti you can find!)

• 400 g white onions

• 8 to 10 olive oil-packed anchovies (anchovy paste is forbidden!).

• 160 g canned light meat tuna in brine (optional)

• 40 g pine nuts (optional)

• 6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

• 1/2 glass of water

• Salt

• Freshly ground black pepper

Instructions:

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.

2. Peel and wash the onions and slice them as finely as you can.

3. In a large frying pan over low heat, fry the onions in olive oil and half a glass of water until very soft and creamy, stirring from time to time with a wooden spoon. About 20 minutes are needed to get the onions soft.

4. Add drained anchovies and let them dissolve within the onions, stirring well until a paste is formed.

5. Add drained tuna and cook the sauce for another 10 minutes till it's well incorporated and melted. You should get a creamy sauce, but if it's too dense you can add a little of the pasta water (just a little!!).

6. Attention to salt! Taste the sauce because it may get too salted or a bit flavorless, it depends on the anchovies and tuna you use. Remove the pan from the heat and set aside.

7. Place bigoli in boiling water and cook them until al dente, drain, and transfer to the pan with the sauce.

8. Toss the bigoli with the sauce over medium heat, add the pine nuts, and season with black pepper.