He’s in love with a meatball

Walking through Firenze with our cooking partner Chef Sindoni,  whom many thousand of readers will no doubt remember from  an earlier post

we remember his insistence that we try the tripe at Restaurant Nerbone, located in the Mercato Centrale. “It’s Florence in  a sandwich” was the way he described this offering.  Though we like to think of ourselves as adventurous eaters, our adventurousness had never extended quite so far as the lining of a pig’s stomach.  Some habits learned in youth are difficult to overcome, but we place great faith in his good taste so several folks ordered up il tripe. At first bite it was obvious that we’d encountered something extraordinary, something iconic, rather like the hot pastrami at Katz’s or the Carnegie Deli, it managed to sum up the culinary history of an entire culture between two slices of bread, though unlike that NYC cousin this sandwich could most certainly never be Kosher…

We hadn’t encountered anything else which so thoroughly embodied the spirit of an entire city until this weekend, when a few foodfighters happened to order the meatball sandwich at Louise’s Sunday Cucina in stall C of the Syracuse Farmer’s Market.  How can we adequately describe this meatball?   First of all, it is big.   Anyone planning on eating more than two at a sitting should probably reconsider.  Take a bite and the first thing you’ll note is that it’s been properly browned and there’s a bit of crust on the outside.    Cutting in (it was a Saturday afternoon, and such a wedding celebration as was to follow would require something mightily hefty to soak up all of that yayin),

one found nothing but softness, though the meat was not so finely ground as to lose all texture, with bits of cheese here and there to provide a pleasant bit of creaminess to roll about on your tongue.   Most important of all was the taste.   Seldom have we eaten something and thought “the seasoning here is perfect,” but that was certainly the case with Louise’s meatball.  To top it all off, these

are some seriously nice folks.   They are passionate about food, and will spend time if it’s not too busy talking with you about what they do, how they do it, and how their family came to be so good at preparing Italian American cuisine.   Anyone who is planning a weekend visit to Syracuse would be well advised to find the regional market and have lunch at Louise’s.

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