Published on: 21 April 2022
Caviar in Ferrara was prepared as early as 1500, because sturgeons were then abundant in the river Po, where specimens of over 2 quintals were fished which yielded 25 kg of eggs, with which a caviar renowned for its excellent qualities was produced. Ferrara’s caviar is obtained from sturgeon eggs processed according to a recipe developed by the famous Cristoforo di Messisbugo, the “masterchef” of Duke Alfonso I d’Este. It undergoes a delicate cooking in the oven that gently enhances its organoleptic characteristics and is then put in oil. Thanks to a very supervised salting, the product has an elegant and refined flavor. After the end of the Este dynasty, traces of the caviar are lost. Around 1930 this delicacy reappeared in the kosher deli shop in via Mazzini at number 62, “a very small shop of Jewish delicacies” as Bassani wrote, owned by “Nuta”, real name Benvenuta Ascoli, of Jewish origin, who had learned the secrets of the processing of sturgeon and how to obtain the famous caviar from her father, who supplied the Jewish ghetto with delicacies. In 1941 the shop, moved to another location, was taken over by her apprentice, and later by his wife, Matilde Pulga, who had kept the precious recipe until 1972, but in the meantime sturgeon fishing had become very rare, since they could not survive in the river Po, too polluted. Thus the tradition disappeared again and the recipe, kept secret, seemed lost. Roberto Brighenti, notary and gourmand from Ferrara, found it by researching into the Jewish community in New York, and then jealously guarded its secret together with his house cook, Giuseppina Bottoni, who until 1984 had again prepared caviar according to the ancient Ferrara procedure only for him and his lucky guests. In 2009, during one presentation of Michele Marziani’s book “La Signora del Caviale (The Lady of the Caviar)”, dedicated to this beautiful story, Giuseppina Bottoni met Cristina Maresi, who, together with her husband, manages a farmhouse in an eighteenth-century structure immersed in the Ferrara countryside, near Portomaggiore . Found a breeder in the Marca Trevigiana, Francesco Bresciani’s trout farming in Santa Cristina, in the province of Treviso, they revived the recipe for Ferrara’s caviar. Since then Cristina Maresi, cook and owner of Agriturismo Le Occare, produces it as it was produced in the “Nuta” deli shop and as it was prepared in the days of the Este dukes.
