It is the king of many recipes, some disputed between Furore and Praiano. From the sea to the table, this ingredient tastefully tells the story of the local culinary heritage.

“It is the marine nobility of our territory.” These are the words of Pietro, 77, a fisherman by passion, who, everyday or evening, with his small boat from the Fiordo di Furore, dives into the waters of the Gulf of Salerno in search of squid. “I have been fishing since I was five years old,” he tells us, “I wanted to be a professional fisherman, but then life took me in other directions.

His is a small fishery of which the area is rich. There are numerous fishermen who, with their boats of different sizes, go out to sea every day to take home or supply local restaurants with their daily catch. 

The types

“Squid is a marine symbol of our area that has given rise to numerous recipes, squid and potatoes, tubetti with squid, squid Praianese style. A culinary heritage that has significantly branded the local cuisine. 

“There are two types of squid, the wild type, which is red, which I cook with the skin on, and the black type, which is a bit more refined, and whose skin is easier to cut. I fish under the coast, so it is easier to find the wild one “. 

Grandma Nicoletta’s recipes

A proponent of authentic and genuine cuisine that draws on tradition and local products, at Pineta 1903 restaurant, the squid is part of a long gastronomic quest carried out by Carlo De Filippo, the owner. “The first time I ate squid, cooked by my mother-in-law Nicoletta was at the Fiordo di Furore on the beach,” Carlo De Filippo tells us. 

“In Furore, the squid and potatoes triumph, an ancient popular dish paired with piennolo tomato. In the painted village, they harvest potatoes grown on terraces two or three times a year. Always considered a dish of people with low incomes, potatoes have always been available in abundance and cheaply. Squids, on the other hand, have not. This combination, precisely squid and potatoes, takes advantage of the great ability of potatoes to absorb flavors so that in a family pot, even one squid could make the dish tasty for everyone.” 

Revisitation

The culinary heritage of the Amalfi Coast offers a wide range of recipes where the main ingredient is represented by the squid, among them the squid ‘mbuttnati, Furore fried squid and potatoes “and another specialty of Furore, contended with Praiano, the tubetti with squid,” explains De Filippo, who illustrated the varieties of recipes in his autobiographical book Bell’e Buono, some taken directly from the archives of his mother-in-law Nicoletta and later revisited. 

At Pineta 1903, this wealth of our sea is brought to the table with a Genovese di Totani with arancino ai tre risi, black, red, and white.