Lake Como Quotes

“I like fire and water. You are lucky to have both right here.”
From " Desperate Pursuit in Venice" Chapter Two. Kataryna's response to Luca.”
― Karynne Summars, Desperate Pursuit in Venice

“If Alessandro and Rosy are working from a disadvantage in terms of product recognition, they have put generations of accumulated experience into practice to fill the menu with dozens of little tastes of Como. They make fragrant, full-flavored stocks from the bones and bodies of perch and chub. They cure whitefish eggs in salt, creating a sort of freshwater bottarga, ready to be grated over pasta and rice. Shad is brined in vinegar and herbs, whitefish becomes a slow-cooked ragù or a filling for ravioli, and pigo and pike form the basis of Mella's polpettine di pesce, Pickled, dried, smoked, cured, pâtéd: a battery of techniques to ensure that nothing goes to waste. If you can make it with meat, there's a good chance Alessandro and Rosy have made it with lake fish.
And then there's missoltino, the lake's most important by-product, a staple that stretches back to medieval times and has been named a presidio by Slow Food, a designation reserved for the country's most important ingredients and food traditions. The people still making missoltino can be counted on a single hand. Alessandro guts and scales hundreds of shad at a time, salts the bodies, and hangs them like laundry to dry under the sun for forty-eight hours or more. The dried fish are then layered with bay leaves, packed into metal canisters, and weighed down. Slowly the natural oils from the shad escape and bubble to the surface, forming a protective layer that preserves the missoltino indefinitely.
It can be used as a condiment of sorts, a weapons-grade dose of lake umami to be detonated in salads and pastas. In its most classic preparation, served with toc, a thick, rich scoop of polenta slow cooked in a copper pot over a wood fire, it tastes of nothing you've eaten in Italy- or anywhere else.”
― Matt Goulding, Pasta, Pane, Vino: Deep Travels Through Italy's Food Culture

“Lake Como," she said the little name to herself lingeringly. He had described a marble palace amongst cypress trees, had made her feel that she was there with him listening to the lap of the water, the singing of a nightingale, the love serenade of a boatman on the lake. "Piangi, piangi fanciulla," he had sung for them the first line. She hadn't known that he could sing.”
― Anya Seton, Dragonwyck