potrero view

January 2012

Monte Cristo Club Serves-Up Salty Fish

Sergio Nibbi

For centuries, salt was the most commonly used way to preserve food.  Salt cured olives, meats, fish and delicacies, like salmon gravlax and the Italian granddaddy of them all, prosciutto. But in today’s modern world of refrigeration and sub-zero freezers why would anyone take a perfectly good piece of freshly-caught cod and go to all the trouble of curing it in salt for weeks, only to have it soak in water for days to reconstitute it?

To find out I visited the Monte Cristo Club, located at 136 Missouri Street, to speak with the experts, Giacomo Moscone and Albi Salvi.  I figured traveling to Potrero Hill, where my office is located, would be easier and cheaper than flying to Portugal, where years ago I enjoyed their version of bacalhau – Portuguese for “codfish” – while on a cruise through the Mediterranean.

One of the Monte Cristo Club’s rituals is their overcrowded and oversold monthly baccala lunches.  On these occasions it’s not unusual for club members and guests – all of whom are male – to spill-out onto the sidewalk while waiting to get upstairs to snatch a few precious lunch tickets from Anita Anderoli, the ticket counter and cash handler.  The lunch crowd sits on straight benches, back to back, while young women serve pasta, always with pesto, a sauce which originated in Genoa.  Giacomo and Albi are both from Genova, and for years made their own pesto from basil, garlic, pinenuts, olive oil and cheese. Today the sauce is purchased from a local supplier.

The club celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2006; most of the original members were Irish.  Over time the club surrendered its Irish roots to northern Italians. The club was originally located at 17th and Arkansas streets.  In 1928 the present building was constructed for the princely sum of $8,000.  Through the years additions and improvements were made, but the club’s original feeling was never lost. With roughly 300 members, the Monte Cristo is as successful as ever; members gather once a month for dinner, and fill the hall for their monthly baccala and tripe lunches.

Originally, the baccala lunches were prepared for a small group that gathered on Good Friday, but the event grew increasingly popular.  Now on Good Friday the club is packed with more than 300 members and guests, including women. With both Moscone and Salvi up in years – Albi will soon turn 92 – new blood is welcomed in a kitchen that’s been feeding members and friends for 105 years.  Both Moscone and Albi spent their professional careers with San Francisco’s garbage companies, Moscone with Golden Gate Disposal and Albi with Sunset Scavengers. For years they’ve worked in the club’s kitchen.  According to Giacomo, guests periodically have asked him where he was trained; what culinary school he attended. He reminds them that he was a “garbage man.”  

Since 1906 the club has provided great food and generous drinks to thousands of happy members and guests.  There’s no reason to doubt that the tradition will continue well into the next millennium.  Stories abound about politicians invited to private parties, the favors, the card games, the camaraderie and of course the great food. Never tried it? Find a member, buy him a drink and have him snatch a ticket for you. Once you enter that innocent-looking building and join the crowd you’ll know what 100-plus years has done to the Monte Cristo…not much. Same food, same fun and yes, that same baccala.  Don’t expect a great big smooch at the end of the meal. After all, if you sat in a barrel of salt for all that time, you’d smell too.

 

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