Trattoria da Carlino | It's Just Fish

The worldview behind the best vongole on the Versilia coast

Our former landlord Veronica grew up by the sea. She lives in a palazzo in Pietrasanta. Money is not the issue. We were telling her, over coffee one afternoon, about a sushi place that had opened in town, run by a model from Milan who had become obsessed with Japan and was importing most of her ingredients direct. The fish was excellent. I had lived in Japan, and I will tell you flatly that this was the best sushi I had eaten outside of it. Veronica listened. She asked what it cost. I told her.

She made the small Italian face that means no.

“Why would you pay that much for fish. It’s just fish.”

Not a question. A statement of principle.

She wasn’t being cheap. She was telling me something about a worldview. Fish, in her grammar, is not the same kind of object as a chianina steak. A chianina is something you build. You raise the cow, you feed it for two years, you breed the line, you kill it carefully, you hang it for weeks, and by the time it reaches the table, it has accumulated value th…