There is something about dealing with an Italian bureaucracy that always leaves me wanting to eat innards. I can’t explain it. But at least on a recent trip taken to renew my Permesso di Soggiorno I’ve discovered Il Fatty.
What do I like about this Massa restaurant? The service is friendly, the place is small and intimate, and the cheapest sandwich on the menu was stuffed with what I craved: Lampredotto, the last stomach of the cow. The tenderest stomach. You can eat well and exotically for 3.50 euro. You can’t beat that with an ox tail.
Here it is was:
What you’re looking for in a Lampredotto panino is wet bread. Yep, the panino (an Italian word referring to just the roll or one whole sandwich) should be dipped in the juices left in the pan from the long-cooked cow stomach and its accompanying aromatic vegetables. Once the bread is good and gooey, the sauces (your choice of green and or spicy ((I’m an and))) are troweled on and a big pile of chopped lampredotto is added. The crusty roll you see in the picture surrounds the soft and wet bread and provides a clam-shell effect when you bite down, sealing it all up so the “innards” don’t squish out the sides.
And that’s the dish.
Now, the reason I am giddy over finding Il Fatty is the fact that the lampredotto sandwich is traditionally found in Florence and pretty much nowhere else I’m aware of. You see, the animal it’s named after, the lamprey eel, is something that Florentines dragged out of the Arno river to feed the masses. If you open up its mouth and peer inside? That’s what lampredotto looks like (they say).
Ok, so you don’t have to order a stomach sandwich if you’re retching over the description of it. Il Fatty offers an amazing list of sandwiches on great bread or focaccia. You can get sausage, ham, porchetta, or boiled tongue. They have soups and pastas at amazingly inexpensive prices. There is wine and artisanal beer to quaff.
Here’s the full frontal view of the business part of the facade of Il Fatty.
Il Fatty
Via Ghirlanda, 9, 54100, Massa, Italy
Go. Eat. In my case, the renewal for my permission to stay in Italy went well, so I can Go. eat, and stay, which makes me very happy indeed.
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