Cundigiun (Italian Riviera tomato salad)

Cundigiun apparently finds its origins in Western Liguria on the border with Provence. In that it partially recalls the famous French niçoise. Over time it walked along the entire Ligurian arc, gradually changing, as always happens, according to the areas, the family tastes, the seasons, arriving on the Genoese tables. The Cundigiun tells the story of the Ligurian peasants, or rather of the Ligurian women, who, while waiting for their husbands embarked on some fishing boats, consumed it on the street, gathered all around a single plate (u “grillettu”), among a gossip and the other. It is a salad where the protagonists are the summer vegetables that grow in the narrow terraced vegetable gardens of this region: tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, red onions, green beans and, sometimes, potatoes.