Octopus salad

The story of ’o purpo

Octopus salad is polpo verace, true octopus, boiled and dressed with olive oil, lemon, parsley and garlic. In Naples octopus is called “polipo”, and in dialect ’o purpo.

It is one of the oldest street foods in the city. In 1884 Matilde Serao describes the women who sold “a piece of octopus boiled in seawater, seasoned with fiery hot pepper”, and the steaming “cauldrons of octopus”. Until after the war, octopus broth was the winter snack of the working-class neighbourhoods; Giuseppe Marotta, in “L’oro di Napoli”, called it “the tea of the sea”. Raffaele Viviani, in “Festa di Piedigrotta”, puts on stage a night-time seller of “purpetielli veraci”.

Octopus has found its way into sayings, too. “’O purpo se coce dint’a ll’acqua soja”, the octopus cooks in its own water: you have to know how to wait. And on sultry days, people say the sea “pare ’nu brodo ’e purpo”.