Judith Schrut enjoys an evening of gastronomic joy with Noci’s legend of the larder, Marino Notarticula.
We kept hearing that Noci was yet another historic and hospitable Puglian town renowned for its gastronomy. But let’s be honest, we were going to Noci for one reason and one reason only: to spend an evening in the exuberant company of Chef Marino Notarnicola, Italy’s panini king, and experience his legendary three course sandwich dinner.
Marino’s diner, Na Dogghia D’Aneme, is not just your average Italian sandwich joint, fabulous as those often are. These sandwiches start with one of Marino’s homemade loaves, freshly baked each morning in the rear kitchen, sliced and splayed on a vast customer facing counter, and painstakingly hand layered with today’s selection of fresh ingredients. This could mean anything from cheeses, meats, organic vegetables and herbs to seeds, sauces, sprouts, spritzes and edible flowers, with 9-12 ingredients per sandwich.
Marino and his devoted wife Anna have been doing this every day, for every customer and for every sandwich since they opened Na Dogghia D’Anemee some years ago. Each is made not only with art, love and passion but from 100% locally sourced ingredients and in tune with the changing seasons.
Marino tells me his family were the first in Italy to make Slow Food. For decades, his father Michele ran a delicatessen just 100 yards from where we are today. Customers particularly looked forward to Signor Notarnicola’s daily panino, just one kind per day but always a sell-out. Michele passed away last year, aged 93.
Marino proudly shows me a yellowing photo of himself as a five year old schoolboy, balancing a huge silver panini-heaped tray taken on one of many occasions he had helped his father cater a local wedding. As a youth he was adamant he did not want to follow in his father’s footsteps. But, he relates, it wasn’t long before he realised “food was in my DNA,” and took up his rightful place as heir to Michele’s culinary kingdom. As he animatedly tells his life story, translated by my friends Toto and Francesco, the rest of our group hungrily await our first course. Marino leaves us in no doubt this is Slow Food at its exquisitely slowest.
At last, down to the business of eating! We watch as our legend of the larder creates tonight’s first course: wild mushroom, rosemary and sage bread filled with sauteed spinach, wild boar pancetta, caramelised onion, ricotta frittata, seasoned broccoli, sundried tomato, pomegranate and chopped pistachios. Once finished, Anna theatrically announces the full parade of ingredients, one by one, as if introducing ravishing models on a catwalk. Mangiamo ragazzi! (Let’s eat, guys!)
Eventually, helped by a great deal of luscious Puglian wine, we munch our way through a second course of Capocollo, aubergine, mushrooms, Neapolitan escarole, toasted chickpea and barley powder, pear chutney and Pecorino cheese on crusty mini loaves laced with sundried tomato pesto, wild celery and a touch of Cabernet, followed by a stunning finale of fluffy chocolate bread rolls layered with clementine and mint sauce, a coffee wafer, white chocolate crème, thin flaky pastry leaves, edible flowers and a spritz of Moscato-Pinot Noir dessert wine.
There’s an old Italian proverb, my new friends tell me as we roll merrily out the door– mangiare per vivere e non vivere per mangiare (eat to live, don’t live to eat). After a night in Noci I’m not sure about that, but I do know I’ll never look at a sandwich the same way again.
Thanks to the lovely Toto of TotoTravels and Francesco of Positivitrip for helping me translate Marino’s story into English.
Judith ate and drank at Na Dogghia D’Aneme, Via Camillo Benso Conte di Cavour 140/86, 70015 Noci, Italy. She travelled to Puglia and Basilicata as a guest of Puglia Cycle Tours and Puglia Promozione. More at pugliacycletours.com and agenziapugliapromozione.it. Another episode in Judith’s Head for the Heel mini series coming soon.
