Footnotes

PROVENANCE
The Lucio's Collection, Sydney

LITERATURE
Lucio Galletto and Timothy Fisher, The Art of Food at Lucio's, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1999, p. 134 (illus.)

This is a salad that encompasses enduring friendship, geography and great food. In our household it is always something special.

I was taught to make it in the village of Mojacar in southern Spain by a Sephardic Jew from Fez - the Moroccan novelist Edmond Elmaleh. His wife, Marie Cecile, is une femme intellectuelle - a biographer of the philosopher and literary critic Walter Benjamin. At the time of the French Revolution her family, members of the haute bourgeoisie, purchased the monastery of Lugny in Burgundy with all its supporting farmlands.

This French-Moroccan family adopted my family, so this recipe has made a journey of friendship from Mojacar, where we first met, to an apartment in Boulevard du Monteparnasse where Edmond and Marie Cecile live, and to the Moulin - part of the monastery in Burgundy still owned by Marie Cecile's family - where we have spent many European summers and snow-covered Christmases with our French family, who gather there en masse at holiday times.

This salad has also accompanied me on an artistic journey. In paintings and drawings I have used images from the very North African landscape Andalusia, where we stayed in a cubist hill town of Moorish origins, from the shores of the Mediterranean and from Burgundy - most notably from the caves, fields and vineyards of the road to Chablis.

Of all salads, this one is for me the most memorable and is laden with associations with the best of people and the best of places. It has been a closely guarded secret in our family until now.

I give it away only for Lucio and Sally.

You will need about two kilograms of tomatoes for eight people. It is essential that you find really good ripe tomatoes, which can be a challenge. Marmande or Ox-heart varieties, the knobbly ones, are best, and they must be deep, luminous red - red all the way through. Don't use those insipid pink ones. Allow at least a couple of tomatoes per person, depending on size. Quarter each one and slice the quarters across into two or three pieces.

Put the tomatoes into a largish bowl, then add three or four cloves of garlic, finely chopped, and a good handful each of finely chopped parsley and fresh coriander leaves.

Finely grind and add two tablespoons of coriander seeds, one tablespoon of cumin seeds and four dried birdseye chillies.

Then add one tablespoon of paprika, one teaspoon of salt, one tablespoon of preserved lemon, finely diced, and finally about a cup of the best olive oil.

Mix all together gently with your hands, allow to stand for about an hour, then eat.

Wonderful on its own with good crusty bread; great with lamb brochettes or any grilled or barbecued meat.

If there is any left over - a rare occurrence - it can be cooked and sieved to make a good spicy tomato sauce.

Colin Lanceley, 1999
The Art of Food at Lucio's