Cardi alla Bagna Cauda

The dish unites two protected Piedmontese specialities. Bagna càuda is an old peasant dip of garlic dissolved in oil with salted anchovies; a recipe of «oil, garlic and salt with dissolved anchovies, into which the cardoon is dipped» is recorded in 18th-century Piedmontese cookery. The cardo gobbo di Nizza Monferrato, a Slow Food Presidium grown in the sandy Belbo valley, is the one cardoon prized for eating raw: in September the tall plants are bent over and buried, and as they push back toward the light the buried stalks curve, lose their chlorophyll, and turn white, sweet and tender — the «hunchback» (gobbo) form. The pairing of this raw cardoon with bagna càuda is the canonical match of the Piedmontese winter table.

The raw cardoon is crisp and juicy with a clean, faintly bitter, celery-like crunch and none of the stringiness of a cooked stalk. Against it the bagna càuda is warm, soft and intensely savoury — garlic gone sweet and mellow, anchovy melted to a deep salty umami, all carried in silky olive oil that coats the rib. The contrast is the whole point: cool crisp vegetable, hot rich sauce. The garlic should be tamed and creamy, not raw and harsh; a sauce that has fried rather than melted turns bitter and acrid and overwhelms the delicate stalk.

Two things make the dish: blanching the cardoon in the field, and emulsifying the sauce. The buried, light-starved stalks stop making chlorophyll and stay low in the bitter, fibrous compounds of a green cardoon, so they turn white, sweet and crisp enough to eat raw — the same etiolation that whitens chicory or white asparagus. In the bagna càuda the garlic is held in oil at a low temperature so it slowly softens and dissolves rather than frying; its harsh raw sulphur compounds mellow with gentle heat, and the anchovies break down into the oil, their proteins and fats dispersing to a thick, savoury sauce. Keeping it warm over a flame holds this loose emulsion fluid for dipping; let it get too hot and the garlic browns and turns bitter.