<i> Bagna Cauda: </i> Soul Food From Piedmont : Community dip: Gathering ‘round the hottub. This vegetable bath isn’t just something to eat, it’s an event.

In a region that boasts some of the heartiest food and long-lived red wines in Italy, you’d be hard pressed to find anybody more enthusiastic about food and wine than Barbera producer Giacomo Bologna. He’s even named his string of racehorses after Sassacaia, Ca’ del Bosco, Coltassala and other favorite wines. An affable, larger-than-life figure, Bologna is a one-man guide to the cooking of Piemonte, Italy, and the world at large.

Bologna manages to work wine and food, and especially the cooking of Piemonte, into every conversation. He’ll bring up tajerin (the region’s hand-cut noodles), the agnolotti stuffed with roasted meats and herbs, the special veal used for carpaccio and a hand-chopped raw veal salad. But when the talk veers to bagna cauda , you can almost see his eyes register cardoons, peppers, celery, garlic, artichokes, one after the other until the images stop at peppers and white truffle. Jackpot.

Basically, Piemonte’s bagna cauda is a “hot bath” of olive oil, anchovies and plenty of garlic in a terra cotta pot warmed over embers (or a chafing-dish arrangement) in the center of the table. As diners dip a succession of vegetables into the bagna cauda and wash it down with spritzy young Barbera, it becomes an impromptu festa. For the Piemontese, bagna cauda is not just a recipe; it’s an event.

At lunch at his winery in Rochetta Tanaro, Bologna gives this version of the dish’s origins: “One day a cook who was with Napoleon’s army didn’t have anything to feed his troops, so he improvised with staples he had on hand. He cooked some garlic and some anchovies in olive oil and gathered some of the vegetables available in that season. The soldiers ‘bathed’ the fall and winter vegetables in the enormous pan of sauce he had warming over the fire. The makeshift dish was a great success, and bagna cauda came to be considered a piatto di amicizia or dish of friendship, because everyone dips their vegetables into a common pot.”

Two vegetables are essential: cardoons and sweet red peppers. An edible thistle native to the Mediterranean, the cardoon is cultivated under banks of earth like celery or Belgian endive. The Piemontese prize a dwarf variety called cardi gobbi or “hunchback” because of its contorted shape. Pale ivory, with a delicate, sweet taste, it is grown near Nizza Monferrato southeast of Asti.

“And then you need raw or roasted sweet red and yellow peppers,” Bologna adds, “or the special peppers we put up every fall. When we draw the new wine off the grapeskins, we take the skins that are still impregnated with the wine, and add them to a demijohn filled with large peppers. The peppers slowly pickle, taking on the perfume and a subtle taste of vinegar.

“All sorts of seasonal vegetables are part of the elaborate still life too: celery, sweet fennel and bouquets of radishes and violet-tipped artichokes. Cabbages, and salad greens, especially bitter greens such as arugula or radicchio, can also be included. Beets baked in their jacket, and whole roasted onions are part of the assemblage,” he says, stirring the olive wood fire blazing in the waist-high hearth.

Bologna’s wife, Anna, who worked with his mother in the family restaurant for years, ladles the bagna cauda sauce into a terra cotta bowl that fits into the saunfetta, a chafing-dish arrangement forged by the local blacksmith. The heat is provided by embers from the olive wood fire. “This saunfetta is perfect for bagna cauda, “ Bologna says, “because it fills the room with the enticing perfume of wood. It’s designed with enough space between the embers and the terra cotta pot so that the sauce doesn’t burn, which is very important.”

The golden green sauce gives off a heady aroma of garlic. Anna Bologna’s recipe uses a whopping pound of garlic for every liter of extra-virgin olive oil. She cooks it slowly just until the oil is suffused with the taste of garlic and the anchovies have melted into the sauce. “The secret of making a good bagna cauda, “ she says, “is to use the best-quality olive oil and anchovies.” She prefers a light, fragrant extra-virgin oil from Liguria. The same region produces the salted anchovies.

Tucking in a linen napkin so that it covers his ample front, Bologna demonstrates the proper technique for eating a bagna cauda. From the platter at the center of the table, he spears some cardoons and pickled peppers with his fork and dips them into the pungent sauce. The idea is to convey the vegetables from the pot to your mouth without dripping sauce all over the table; this you do by tracking every bite with a piece of bread. Some people like to dip in and out fast; others prefer to leave certain vegetables to warm through or cook just a little in the pot. “Use a fork or your fingers to dip the vegetables in the sauce, whichever is easiest,” Bologna advises.

“Every November,” he says, “we taste the new wine with bagna cauda. It goes very well with this lusty, full-flavored dish.” He also serves the most recent vintage of La Monella, a young, slightly spritzy Barbera. Before Nebbiolo became fashionable, every father put away some bottles of Barbera when his son was born to celebrate his coming of age at 18. “It’s a wine that has been and still is our milk in this region,” said Bologna. “Barbera is the traditional wine for bagna cauda, because its lively fruit helps to wash down the pungent sauce, which can be a little heavy.”

At the end, when only a little sauce is left in the bagna cauda pot, it’s usual to break an egg into the pot for each person, and let it cook very slowly. “And--if you are lucky enough to have a white truffle,” he says dramatically, as he unwraps a blue-and-white handkerchief to reveal a handsome example, “you shave it over the eggs.” He does--and the room fills with the powerful scent of truffle. This is real Piemontese soul food, and the grand finale to a blissful feast for garlic lovers.

Two cups or one liter of olive oil for six people may seem like a lot, but somehow a great deal of sauce seems to disappear. If you do have some leftover sauce, Bologna suggests having vegetables with Bagna Cauda for a snack for a few days.

The best olive oil for Bagna Cauda is light, fragrant extra-virgin olive oil from Liguria. Tuscan oils and oils from the south of Italy are too strongly flavored for the sauce, while some California olive oils can taste heavy. Catalan olive oil from Spain is also a good choice. Salt-packed anchovies are sold in bulk at some Italian groceries or international delicatessens. If you use anchovy fillets in oil, rinse well and add small amount at a time, since these are generally saltier and stronger tasting than salt-packed anchovies. Remember the weight in the recipe refers to whole salt-packed anchovies, so use much less if you are weighing out fillets only.

BAGNA CAUDA WITH VEGETABLES

1/4 pound whole salt-packed anchovies

2 cups extra-virgin olive oil

1/4 cup unsalted butter

1/2 pound (about 4 heads) garlic cloves, peeled

Assorted Vegetables

1 or 2 eggs per person, at room temperature

Small white truffle, optional

Under running water, fillet whole anchovies, washing away all salt. Remove scales and intestines from anchovies if needed. Pat dry, roughly chop, and set aside.

Heat olive oil and butter in heavy saucepan over medium-high heat. Saute garlic until lightly golden. Add anchovies and cook gently, stirring, until anchovies dissolve into sauce, about 15 to 20 minutes. (Be careful not to burn garlic.) Pass sauce through fine sieve.

Keep sauce warm in chafing pot and serve with Assorted Vegetables. When everyone is sated on vegetables, and only small amount sauce remains in pot, break 1 or 2 eggs for each person into bubbling sauce. Cover and cook few minutes. When eggs begin to set, break yolks with fork and gently stir. (Eggs should be soft curds.) Shave white truffle over cooked eggs just before serving. Makes 6 servings.

Assorted Vegetables

Cardoons, washed and trimmed, cut ends rubbed with little lemon juice to prevent discoloring

Raw or roasted sweet red peppers, cut in quarters or strips

Celery stalks, cut up

Turnips, cut in quarters

Carrots, whole or cut in strips

Red radishes

Fennel, cut in quarters

Jerusalem artichokes

Medium artichokes

Small whole onions, roasted in oven

Beets, baked in jackets, peeled and sliced

Radicchio, escarole and other bitter greens, separated into leaves

Cabbage leaves

Arrange cardoons, sweet peppers, celery, turnips, carrots, radishes, fennel, Jerusalem artichokes, artichokes, roasted onions, beets, radicchio and cabbage on large serving platter and/or basket.

ZUPPA DI CECI

(Chickpea Soup)

3/4 pound dried chickpeas or garbanzo beans

Dash baking soda

1 onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, chopped

1 sprig sage leaves

1 pound pork baby back ribs

Salt, pepper

Place chickpeas in bowl and add tepid water to cover. Stir in baking soda, then soak mixture overnight. Next day, drain and rinse chickpeas in tepid water.

Place chickpeas in saucepan and add onion, garlic, sage and water to cover. Cook over low heat until tender, about 45 minutes.

Place ribs in another pot with water to cover. Cover and simmer until almost tender and most of fat has cooked off. Add ribs and liquid to chickpea mixture and finish cooking. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve 1 or 2 little spareribs in each bowl of soup. Makes 4 to 6 servings.