table talk / By Joseph Byrd

Forging Dinner

Unearthing the lost cuisine of the fantastic Erba Verde Islands

(March 13, 2008)  The islands of Erba Verde, reached by secular humanists fleeing the late 15th century Venetian tyrant-priest Girolamo Savonarola, remained a lost, mythical place for centuries. Tales of this magical land, whose name could mean “green grass” or “green herb,” fascinated the Portuguese and Spanish, but did not distract them from their obsessive pursuit of gold.

The Italians, mostly educated men, families and servants, found in the archipelago another group of refugees, ones who had escaped the blood sacrifices of the Aztec Empire. The two groups intermarried. The history of the founders’ experience with religious excess made secular society seem attractive. Class, race and educational differences were gradually subsumed by consanguinity and the need for communal endeavor.

This lovely Erba Verde beach remains unsullied — for now. Plans are afoot to build a 37-story luxury hotel. Local preservationists have filed a protest, but lawyers for the multinational corporation spearheading the project claim “resistance is futile.”

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The settlers, faced with the increasing threat of colonial warships, set about discouraging intruders by making their harbors treacherous and quietly disposing of persistent unwanted guests. Many of the mysterious ship disappearances attributed to “The Bermuda Triangle” were hapless adventurers who got a bit too nosy. A century passed, then another. The world roiled and blustered, colonial empires rose and fell, and Erba Verde went its uncharted way, far from the sea-lanes of commerce and conquest.

Island life seemed good. The agricultures of Northern Italy and Mesoamerica made a felicitous marriage. Wheat and corn alike thrived in the warm air of the Gulf Current, chilies and chicory, avocados and artichokes, cucumbers and squashes, almonds and oranges. A dwarf red banana palm was indigenous, as were bay grape trees (Coccobola uviferal) and juniper. Wild herbs grew, vaguely similar to thyme, epazote, sorrel and basil. A native allium was cultivated and selectively modified.

While beef was not known, the pilgrims had brought goats and turkeys. A strain of wild ducks was domesticated, as was the native warthog (Potamochoerus larvatus bermudamus), providing a slightly gamy alternative to pork. Seafood, of course, was abundant and hugely varied, from conch to giant sea turtle, a meat similar to veal.

Thus over the centuries Erbe Verdan cuisine came to include elements of both Renaissance Venetian and Aztec cookery. Not, of course, the modern traditions of Northern Italy or Mexico. In the absence of tomato, sauces were livened by orange juice, fermented bay grapes or juniper berries. There was no wine or beer, but a strong pulque-like ale was made from palmetto root. Bees were not native, so there was no honey — un-refined sugar was derived from bananas.

Chocolate seems to have been cultivated (the Aztecs had used a monetary system in which a turkey cost one hundred cacao beans and a fresh avocado was equal to three), although at 25 degrees latitude the islands are a bit too far north for optimum production, so the fruit was not abundant. Coffee was unknown. On the other hand, the growing season was equatorial, and the locale out of the main path of tropical hurricanes.

The single source of culinary detail can be found in a slim handwritten journal that somehow found its way to Italy in the late 19th century: La Cucina da Erbe Verde. From it, we can imagine a menu. I’ve given first the names of dishes and probable sources, then a description of how one might go about preparing a close analog to the original.

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