Savona | Panissa to go

It seemed like a lifetime had passed since I was last in Savona, though actually it was only just over a year. Back for a photo shoot for our Little Italy project last week, in the penthouse of Riccardo Boffil‘s stunning glass tower, we had a few moments for a quick bite, so we slipped into the friggitoria just off Via Pia for one of my all-time favorites. To an unaccustomed eye, a bag of panissa looks like a bag of ordinary potato chips (slap chips as we call them back in South Africa), although the two have nothing in common.

Panissa is actually a pastry made with chick pea flour then rolled into fat sausage shapes called liste that look similar to tofu. You can buy the raw liste and fry them at home (try in blocks with onion and marjoram… ) or take panissa to go – sliced into bite-sized half-moons and deep fried in extra virgin olive oil from Liguria right before your eyes. Thank you ever so much, Stefania and Giorgio, for lending us the twins.