Cassoulet slowly cooks white beans with sausage and a combination of meats including duck, goose, bacon, and mutton. Like much Italian cooking, the simplicity of this dish is precisely its sophistication. Pasta is topped with a sauce of olive oil, capers, garlic, olives, anchovies, basil, and tomato. One can use pork, lamb, chicken, or fish and shellfish. Saffron, rosemary, and wine lend color and aroma.
Poached pears accompany the meat.
White fish is poached in a tomato sauce made with fresh plum tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, and parsley. This French relative of the pizza is a classic onion tart. A sprinkling of calamata olives completes the tart, which is then baked in a brick oven. This spectacular stew overflows with fish, clams, shrimp, lobster, squid, and mussels. Then the seafood is doused with brandy and tossed, first with a tomato and onion sauce, then with a picada sauce of garlic, almond and bread.