originated in Nice . At the end of the eighteenth century, the original version of the Salade Niçoise consisted only of a changing combination of tomatoes, anchovies, olive oil and some black pepper. Just across the border we find the Condiglione, also called Cundigiun in the local dialect of the province of Liguria. This salad was so tasty that it is even known as far away as Genoa. The name of the salad is somewhat mysterious, but my Italian correspondent was able to tell me that it was related to condire , a word meaning 'to season (with herbs and olive oil)'. The ending -glione indicates 'excess' * . As with the Salade Niçoise , there is no fixed recipe for Condiglione either. It is said in a very romantic way that recipes are passed down from mother to daughter, but I myself think that people simply use whatever they find in the garden or kitchen cupboard to make a healthy salad. This salad originated as a dish that was eaten quickly by farmers during their short breaks. Ligurian women also ate it together when they were waiting for their fishing husbands to return. They ate it from a single dish: u grillettu . It is a salad in which the main players are the summer vegetables that grow in the narrow terraced vegetable gardens of this region: tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, red onions, green beans and sometimes potatoes. This salad is then lavishly seasoned with fresh torn basil leaves, with the intense flavour of the local, almost sweet Taggiasca olives and by the savoury salted anchovies. Finally, the salad is finished off with plenty of extra virgin olive oil. The locals are so proud of their overly seasoned salad that they even have a proverb for it: 'Non mi fido di tres cose: condiglione senza condimento, bella donna civettuola, contadino senza tridente' or 'I don't trust three things: condiglione without seasonings (herbs and olive oil), beautiful coquettish woman, farmer without trident (pitchfork)'. * Some other examples are dormire ('to sleep') and dormiglione ('sleepyhead'),to eat ('eten') as a glutton ('veelvraat'), to cry
('to cry') and piagnone ('crying baby'), fare nulla ('to do nothing') and fannullone ('bum').
