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Cernia Nera (Italian)
Grouper
Appears in
Published 1986
The first time I cooked a cernia we were camping on a beach in autumn: a little black cernia, impulsively acquired from a fisherman. There was no alternative but to make a fire between stones and grill it. A young man from a nearby village began to interest himself in the proceedings, fanning the fire to hasten the braise, made of scrub and pine branches gathered in the dunes.
He was shocked at the thought of grilling it. It ought, he said, to be prepared in a sauce of onions, plum tomatoes and herbs, cooked in olive oil. Impossible! We hadnโt got a pan. Abashed I cleaned the fish in the sea, oiled it and, once on the grill, applied some more oil from time to time with a twig of rosemary. The young man politely withdrew and left us to eat the fish with our fingers. A very delicate fish with a taste of lobster. But one could see what he meant, it fell apart into succulent morsels.
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