Articolo disponibile anche in: Italian
Legend tells us that the workers of the Officine Grafiche Stianti, a sort of “Fiat of San Casciano”, for decades swarmed from Borgo Sarchiani to the city center as soon as the lunch bell rang.
They stopped in via Machiavelli, in Sergio Bandini’s food shop. The lunch sandwich of the day was always the same, typical of good things from San Casciano where all food is used and recycled.
We are referring to the “Bomba”, born from the desire to use canned tuna to the very end. We are talking about the huge cans of tuna, sold by weight. At the end of these cans, lots of small “pearls of taste” remained on the bottom and were collected and used in the “Bomba”.
The type of bread most adapted was crunchy “scoletta”. Then tuna, squashed peeled tomatoes, salt, pepper and little pickles were added. No capers!
Sergio, who passed in 2014, would tell us: “It was 1954: many types of foods were sold in bulk. Tuna came in 10 kilo cans. At the bottom of the cans, little pieces remained which were difficult to sell. Thus, the “Bomba” was born. They actually called it ‘panino al pomodoro fatto con la scolettina’, tomato sandwich made with scoletta bread. Inside I put canned peeled tomatoes, salt, pepper, tuna and pickles cut vertically. The panino finished with a drop of good olive oil”.
“My best customers”, he used to say, “were young people who came to San Casciano from nearby towns. We sometimes stayed open even on Sunday evening. The youngsters would dine on the “Bomba” instead of returning home. The sandwich was baptized by a client, who exclaimed, ‘Sergio, this sandwich is a bomba’”.
Every San Casciano native has his own “Bomba” in his heart. Mine is on the road that leads to the middle school, in the beginning of via della Liberta’, at the old grocery store that belonged to Renzo Saccardi (no longer with us). Every “Bomba” is fine…as long as it follows the rules!
Matteo Pucci