[ speaking foreign language ] tony is cooking his version of the sicilian classic, spaghetti alla bottarga. oh i see, it creates a little texture to it which helps the sauce stick to it which ends up giving everything a better flavor. what could be more italian than spaghetti, right? well, wrong. it s said that spaghetti was invented by the arabs who brought it to sicily a thousand years ago. but the arabs ate their spaghetti with raisins and cinnamon, very different to the savory dishes of today, like this one. [ speaking foreign language ] bottarga is a solid block of dried fish eggs, tuna in this case. tony is so proud of his signature dish he has named it
spaghettony. garam. this is like what the romans used to make. right. this is the secret to the flavor. this gives it that intensity. garam was sort of like roman ketchup. sort of, maybe. tony then adds lemon zest, sicilian of course, and an avalanche of bottarga. on top he adds salted, dehydrated fried capers for crunch and dried breadcrumbs ground down with anchovies, which is called mullica. this is the mullica that people used to use who lived by the sea because they didn t have cheese, this in essence took the place of cheese. tony: voila. tucci: come on. tony: oh! tucci: oh no! tucci: that s beautiful.
Bottarga is salted, cured roe from gray mullet or bluefin tuna, and is a very classic dish in Sardinia. The golden-colored eggs, traditionally grated and sprinkled over pasta dishes, add a savory layer of briny, sea-soaked flavor.
and traditional ingredients and preparations with my order, i could not resist the soft shell crabs, which are just in season. with a pasta and shaved bottarga, which frankly, i d slit my best friend s throat for. glenn: wow, that looks great. anthony: yeah. glenn: that s beautiful. anthony: it s sweet. when you had your first forkful of proper rice is there an instinct to go out and sort of bludgeon the rest of the world into understanding what you have just come to understand. glenn: i did not run up and down the streets of charleston. it was tough to dislodge people here so i just went straight to san francisco and i gave away tons of product. and guess what? they went crazy. anthony: slow baked black bass, anson mills farrow, ramps in season, and lettuces. and this ode to all things glenn is responsible for bringing back. heirloom rice and peas, suckling ossabaw pig and chicken confit
you re looking at politics. you re looking at medicine. you re looking at the advanced thinking. anthony: i ll agree with you that there is nothing more political than food. glenn: you got it. anthony: chef mike lata s restaurant fig was one of the first and most important on the charleston scene. determined to source the kind of local products that you used to find everywhere in the low country. as much as i d like to illustrate that solid grounding and traditional ingredients and preparations with my order, i could not resist the soft shell crabs, which are just in season. with a pasta and shaved bottarga, which frankly, i d slit my best friend s throat for. glenn: wow, that looks great. anthony: yeah. glenn: that s beautiful. anthony: it s sweet. when you had your first forkful of proper rice is there an instinct to go out and sort of bludgeon the rest of the world into understanding what you have just come to understand. glenn: i did not run up and down the streets