The brodetto di Portorecanati has its roots in the invention of Giovanni Velluti in the late nineteenth century. He transformed into a complete lunch, with a delicate flavor, the fish soup that fishermen cooked on their racks, to survive during long hours of work. That was made with scraps, so as not to consume the best part of the catch. Velluti used at least seven different types of fish, from the most precious to the most common, cooked in a singular way, covered in mystery.
The Velluti chalet became the first restaurant on the beach of Portorecanati since 1885, a wooden platform covered by a gazebo and sheltered by white sheets, a sail in the midst of the many wooden winches that carried the fishermen’s boats to dry. Velluti thus began the tourist transformation of the eighteenth-century seaside village, which was completed only after the Second World War. When many restaurants have found a place around the see promenade of Porto Recanati, that has become one of the most sought after and pleasant on the Marche coast.
Innovative or traditional chefs often chase that recipe, without anyone really getting close to it. Because the Velluti have jealously guarded its ingredients and techniques, first only for commercial reasons, then as a stubborn recourse to an ungrateful destiny. In fact, in the thirties the restaurant was closed because only two sisters remained to inherit it. Despite them, because they would have liked to carry on the tradition and renew the success obtained by their father. However, at the end of his own production cycle, Giovanni Velluti closed the restaurant because at the time he thought it was not a thing for women to have anything to do with the public of customers, an opinion shared by many of the upper middle class in the Italian province, certainly a little bigoted.
The restaurant between the late nineteenth and early twentieth century had become a point of reference for the food and wine culture of the Marche region, to the point that it was often crowded with a rich local and international clientele. Often the famous tenor of Recanat Beniamino Gigli, with his international entourage, went to eat there. The Chalet was a recurring landing point for passing fleets, especially the English one. Memories and historical photos tell of when the king of Italy, instead of descending from his spear in the town hall castle square, was welcomed by two wings of crowds right in front of the Velluti restaurant.
A century ago the Adriatic was still a “space / time unity”, to take up the dazzling Braudelian definition of the Mediterranean. Goods, people and recipes navigated and united even distant communities. A Chioggia fisherman still tells how their fish soup recipe looks a lot like that of the Portorecanatese broth. He says that in Chioggia some people still make the soup by giving it the characteristic burnished color, letting it cook with a rusty nail, as Velluti had hinted at then.
Giovanni Velluti was my great-grandfather. I still remember the enormous bitterness of my grandmother Elvira, when she told of the atmosphere, festive and exclusive at the same time, that accompanied the life of the restaurant. Bitterness that oozed with indignation in the words of my mother Vanna, who still felt that sexist exclusion as an affront to her living skin. My mother gave me not only the recipe, assimilated through many preparations together, where she basically did not spoke, but emphasized the movements of the hands, as if leaving them the task of sharing rhythms and gestures. It was not only emphasis but really an extraordinary dimension of doing, tactile, to the point that to know if the broth was cooked almost “imposed his hands”, she touched the fish in the boiling and decided whether or not to let it cook again.
For years I have been wondering how to respect the mandate for confidentiality, and at the same time make this memory so precious for us alive, but also for the growing community of enthusiasts who from many parts ask to understand and discover a fundamental and tasty passage of local and Italian food and wine history. Even then the fame of the Velluti soup had crossed the Alps and the Touring Club guide of the ’31 tells that it was shipped cooked to Paris. A few years ago this culinary heritage inspired the candidacy for a European project on fish recipes from Mediterranean grandmothers, with prestigious partners from Greece to France, unfortunately lost for a few hundredths of a point.
A short time ago I was in Greece for work (I am an architect and a professor) when I invited my dear friends who hosted me to a soup dinner. Just Greek saffron, according to historians, inspired the first version of the Adriatic broth. In fact it was such a pleasant experience for me that I finally shared a precious legacy, as for my friends who knew how to appreciate it.
Then came the idea of cooking brodetto at home, keeping the recipe secret but sharing its taste. In fact, this is the greatest gift we can give to the memory of a humble product of the genius of grandfather Velluti, unjustly relegated only to the history books of the bigotry of the time. In fact, only the memory that we are able to share lives.
The Velluti di Portorecanati brodetto is a way of cooking fish, in the sense that the fish is not served immersed in its broth, but rather whole, or in large pieces. You can soak the croutons and season the spaghetti with the sauce. No, we can’t tell you more, but invite you to enjoy it at home, where I can come with the ingredients and cook it, just for you, and to share a cultural and food and wine experience, the passion of putting the Mediterranean on the table, or at least pieces, many and large.
Francesco Calzolaio, Venezia/Macerata, 2019