At Palermo’s Capo Market, I spotted a blue-and-white platter crowded with little toasts. On each sat a slice of beef tongue, topped with red or yellow roasted peppers, sometimes both. The yellow peppers caught the light first. Then I noticed how the tongue had been cut, broad enough to cover most of the bread and thin enough that the whole thing still looked like something you could pick up in one hand. A couple of the toasts were propped up against their neighbors, as if the platter had run out of room.
Look at the two pieces at the front of the photograph. On one, a flap of yellow pepper drapes over the tongue almost to the edge of the bread. Beside it, a red piece folds over a yellow one. You can see the sesame seeds on the crust and the nearly black edges where the bread caught more heat. Chopped greens show up here and there, with lettuce tucked into the gaps on the platter. The blue rim is just visible around it all, and below that there’s another pattern, a counter covering busy with little flowers and curling leaves. It’s a lot to look at for a plate of toast.
Beef tongue is often talked about as if the main event were persuading somebody to try it. Here the interest is in how neatly it fits the toast. Cooked until tender and sliced across, it gives each piece a substantial layer of beef without asking the bread to carry a heap of meat. The peppers bring sweetness and a little moisture, especially where their juices meet the toasted surface. And the crust has enough chew to hold the whole thing together. I like that several toasts have the pepper set a bit off-center. You can see exactly what’s underneath before you pick one up.
What I took away from that platter was an idea for using roasted peppers at home. Leave them in broad pieces when you put them on toast. Cut small, they end up scattered between bites. A wide piece folds over the meat and gives you some pepper from the first bite, right where the crust is at its crunchiest. The Capo platter makes that look obvious. It hadn’t occurred to me before.