As I stand at the bar of Trattoria da Giovanni, just a few steps from Trieste’s Canal Grande, a waft of steam billows past me. Someone has just ordered a panino porzina con senape e cren, an order that will be repeated over a hundred times today. It is a basic sandwich - steamed pork shoulder in crusty bread with a generous dollop of mustard and freshly grated horseradish - but like a Margherita pizza, or the cast of The Office, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Unfortunately, I am not waiting for a panino porzina. The infamous wind known as the Bora is blowing outside, so I felt that I needed something more warming: a bowl of jota - a fitting rebechin (mid-morning snack, usually accompanied by the local Dreher beer). There is perhaps no dish more traditional in Trieste than jota. Its name coming from the late Latin ‘jutta’, meaning ‘stodgy soup’, the accepted Triestino version of the soup dates from the 16th century. It is a thick, rich blend of potatoes, beans, and sauerkraut, cooked with smoked pork to enrich the broth. Not your traditional Italian food maybe, but then Trieste isn’t your traditional Italian city. Everything in the little trattoria seems like it would be more at place hidden in some little Austrian town: more Mitteleuropa than Belpaese.
Photo: shelf5.com