''Cappon magro'' (; lij, capon magro ), is an elaborate Genoese salad of seafood and

vegetable Vegetables are parts of plants that are consumed by humans or other animals as food. The original meaning is still commonly used and is applied to plants collectively to refer to all edible plant matter, including the flowers, fruits, stems, ...

s over

hardtack Hardtack (or hard tack) is a simple type of dense biscuit or cracker made from flour, water, and sometimes salt. Hardtack is inexpensive and long-lasting. It is used for sustenance in the absence of perishable foods, commonly during long sea voy ...

arranged into a decorative pyramid and dressed with a rich

sauce In cooking, a sauce is a liquid, cream, or semi-solid food, served on or used in preparing other foods. Most sauces are not normally consumed by themselves; they add flavor, moisture, and visual appeal to a dish. ''Sauce'' is a French wor ...

. A similar but much less elaborate dish is called ''capponata'' in Liguria (Ligurian: ''cappunadda''), ''capponata'' in Sardinia, and ''caponata estiva'' or ''caponata di pesce'' in Campania. It is a salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, lettuce, hard-boiled eggs, bottarga, and dried tuna dressed with olive oil.

Name

''Cappon magro'' means 'fast-day capon'. As the dish contains no ingredients considered meat under the rules of traditional Catholic fasting, it is a suitable meal for the traditional Catholic fast days, including Christmas Eve. 'Capon' may be a wry reference to the poultry capon, a traditional dish for Christmas. Or it may refer to the biscuit base, comparable to the French 'chapon', a slice of bread rubbed with garlic which is placed in the bottom of a soup or salad bowl.Waverly Root, ''The Food of Italy'', 1971, , p. 362 It may also refer to one of the many fish called 'cappone' (perhaps a gurnard or

red mullet Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–740 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a seconda ...

).Gillian Riley, ''The Oxford Companion to Italian Food'', p. 290

Preparation

The foundation of a ''cappon magro'' is a layer of hard tack biscuits ("gallette") rubbed with garlic and soaked in seawater and vinegar. Then a pyramid is built up layer by layer. Each layer may consist of one or many vegetables, fishes, or seafoods. All recipes include boiled white fish, a lobster, green beans,

celery Celery (''Apium graveolens'') is a marshland plant in the family Apiaceae that has been cultivated as a vegetable since antiquity. Celery has a long fibrous stalk tapering into leaves. Depending on location and cultivar, either its stalks, ...

, carrots,

beet The beetroot is the taproot portion of a beet plant, usually known in North America as beets while the vegetable is referred to as beetroot in British English, and also known as the table beet, garden beet, red beet, dinner beet or golden beet ...

s, and

potato The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'' and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae. Wild potato species can be found from the southern Unit ...

es. Some authorities insist that black salsify is essential. Other seafoods and vegetables may also be included. Each ingredient is boiled separately, cut up, and seasoned with oil and vinegar. Each layer is dressed with a sort of cross between

salsa verde Salsa verde () is a type of spicy, green sauce in Mexican cuisine based on tomatillo and green chili peppers. The tomatillo-based Mexican ''salsa verde'' dates to the Aztec Empire, as documented by the Spanish physician Francisco Hernández, ...

and mayonnaise; it consists of parsley, garlic, capers, anchovies, the yolks of hard-boiled eggs, and green olives ground together in a mortar with olive oil and vinegar. The pyramid is topped with a lobster capped with its

coral Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and ...

. The sides of the pyramid are garnished with green olives,

botargo Bottarga is a delicacy of salted, cured fish roe pouch, typically of the grey mullet or the bluefin tuna (). The best-known version is produced around the Mediterranean; similar foods are the Japanese and Taiwanese , which is softer, and Korean ...

, capers, anchovy filets, crayfish, artichokes, and quartered hard-boiled eggs.Touring Club Italiano, ''Guida all'Italia gastronomica'', p. 192

Naples "Caponata Estiva"

The

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

dish called "Caponata Estiva" 'Summer Caponata', "Caponata Napolitana", or "Caponata di Pesce" consists of moistened ring-shaped

rusk A rusk is a hard, dry biscuit or a twice-baked bread. It is sometimes used as a teether for babies. In some cultures, rusk is made of cake, rather than bread: this is sometimes referred to as cake rusk. In the UK, the name also refers to a whea ...

s (''friselle'' or ''gallette'') dressed with oil, salt, garlic, oregano and basil, and topped with sliced tomatoes and possibly tuna. Any number of additional ingredients are optional, including smoked herring, pickled vegetables, olives, capers, anchovies, sardines, hard boiled eggs, very thinly sliced boiled beef, cucumber, carrot, celery.

Traditions

''Cappon magro'' is a traditional dish for Christmas Eve.

Notes

{{salads Bread salads Cuisine of Liguria Italian seafood dishes Genoa Italian cuisine Christmas food

Name

Preparation

Naples "Caponata Estiva"

Traditions

See also

Notes