While it cooks, you prepare the vegetables frying onions, roasting potatoes, peeling celery and cardoons, and washing radicchio. Once everything is nearly ready, you cook a big pot of polenta. Finally, the bagna cauda is served in small ceramic dishes with tea lights underneath to keep the sauce warm as you dip!
Until the mid-20th century, Italy was a poor agricultural country, and farmers typically had access to meat only once or twice a year. Can you imagine that? As a result, community events relied on much humbler ingredients, such as canned fish, locally produced olive oil from the neighboring province of Liguria, and homegrown vegetables. Cardoons (the stems of the artichoke plant), fennel, and corn are especially important to the region. Bagna cauda is a perfect example of Cucina Povera (poor people's cuisine), which highlights how Italian cooking transforms simple, local ingredients into wonderfully flavorful and interesting dishes!
