Holiday & Cookery in Tuscany - Florence - Cuisine & Wines

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Casella di testo: THE HISTORY OF TUSCAN AND FLORENTINE COOKERY from the Etruscan and the Medici family till today Lecture notes that the President of Magici Sapori held in Italy and abroad Florence has evidence of original Etruscan life from all frescos found in tombs in the heart of the city. We can still find dishes that were prepared then on today's Florentine tables. So called typical dishes that vary from zone to zone in Tuscany with few or many differences in few kilometers, originated in the Middle Ages. The land was divided by the feudal system; money and goods did not circulate outside. Each state was self-sufficient and had to rely on its own resources, which were often scarce or inexsistent… (the complete text on”The History of Tuscan and Fiorentine cookery - from the Etruscan and Medici family till today”) Some typical dishes of Tuscan and Florentine cookery The traditional Tuscan and Florentine recipes are innumerable and it would be impossible to make a complete list of them all in a page of website. The list below proposes just some of the most representative dishes from the gastronomic tradition of this wonderful Florence. Slices of bread with porcini mushrooms: the porcini mushrooms, from Tuscan mountain woods, are cut in small pieces and cooked with garlic, parsley and a local aromatic herb called “nepitella”. Slices of bread with salt and oil: toasted bread seasoned with (or better completely soaked in) extra-virgin olive oil from the first pressing, and salt. Bread and cabbage: a slice of toasted Tuscan bread covered with a particular kind of “black” cabbage and seasoned with extra-virgin olive oil. Panzanella: stale Tuscan bread soaked first in red vinegar, then in water. We crumble it and add some vegetables like onion, tomato and cucumber, and then basil, salt, pepper and extra-virgin olive oil. It is a very popular summer dish. Fried sage: two leaves of sage paired with an anchovy fillet inside, dipped in beaten egg and fried. Slices of bread with chicken liver paté: it is the typical entrée for every real Fiorentine. The slices of Tuscan bread can be toasted or soaked in meat broth or Vin Santo. Tripe salad: tripe is the beef stomach boiled in vegetable broth and cutted in thin strips; to be served with diced vegetables and seasoned with oil, salt and pepper. Florentine tripe: the tripe already boiled is cooked again in tomato sauce. To be served with a sprinkle of grated Parmesan cheese. Tuscan meat sauce: unlike the recipes of other regions, this meat sauce is made only with beef meat and tomato paste, and obviously various vegetables. To be boiled at a low flame for many hours. Bechamel sauce: based on flour, butter and milk, and flavoured with nutmeg. Even if it is known as a French recipe, the bechamel sauce, like some other dishes of French cuisine, has Florentine origins. In fact they were brought to France by Caterina de’ Medici when she went there to marry the future king of France, Henry II. Carabaccia: onions soup, from which it seems was born the famous French “soupe d’oignon” (see Caterina de’ Medici…). Ribollita: a soup made with stale Tuscan bread, various vegetables, but above all with a lot of “black” cabbage, white beans (cannellini) and extra-virgin olive oil. A way of Florentine housewives for using the leftovers. Tomato soup: another Florentine soup made with stale bread, tomato sauce, garlic and a lot of basil. Another way to use leftovers! Beans soup: Tuscan soup based on “cannellini” beans, that are required to make any kind of Tuscan soups. Another kind of Tuscan bean, not fit for soups but very rare and “precious”, is the so-called “zolfino del Pratomagno”. Pasta and beans: a soup made with boiled beans, then sifted and added with short pasta. To be served warm with a “circle” of extra-virgin olive oil. Florentine crepés: small omelettes made with flour, egg and milk. We stuff them with spinach sauté, ricotta cheese and Parmesan cheese. Then we roll up them and put them into the oven on a base of bechamel sauce. You can stuff the crepés with many other sweet or savoury stuffings. Also the crepés are part of the dishes brought to France by Caterina de’ Medici. Pappardelle with hare: “pappardelle” are a kind of wide tagliatelle. We season them with hare meat sauce. Arista: typical Florentine recipe made using the loin of pork and aromatic herbs. It seems that during the council of Florence in 1439 a Greek patriarch, tasting this savoury dish, exclaimed “aristos!” that in Greek means “very good!”. The Florentines, misunderstanding this word, thought it was the name of this dish. Still today “arista” is its name! Florentine (T bone) steak: beef steak, from a special beef race called “chianina”. It has to be at least 4cm. high and has to be cooked for a few minutes on the barbecue. Inside it must be raw. Chicken or rabbit “alla cacciatora”: chicken or rabbit cut into pieces and cooked with aromatic herbs and tomato sauce. The gravy we obtain is very good to season rice or pasta. Pork chop and “black” cabbage: the other ingredients are fennel seeds, aromatic herbs and Chianti wine. Remade chops: beef or veal chops covered with egg and breadcrumbs, and fried in oil. Then they are cooked again with parsley, garlic and tomato sauce. Maybe this recipe was born to use small quantities of meat, that so made seems to be more. Mixed boiled meat: we use the less valuable parts of beef and cook them at length in vegetable broth. This broth is used for soups or consommées. Once it was a Sunday dish or was reserved to sick people, because they thought the broth was very substantial. Remade boiled meat: when some boiled meat was left over, they added red onions and tomato sauce and cooked it again. Meatballs from boiled meat: another way to re-use boiled meat is to mince it and mix with boiled potatoes, garlic, parsley, egg and grated Parmesan cheese. We make some little cylinders and fry them in oil. Meat roll in a Florentine way: minced veal meat, egg, soft part of stale bread soaked with milk, grated Parmesan cheese and nutmeg. We cook with or without tomato sauce, at pleasure. Peposo from Impruneta: typical beef stew, made with beef meat cut into pieces, tomato sauce, Chianti wine and a lot of black pepper. This dish needs a long cooking. Cibreo: it is an ancient recipe, almost impossibile to be made, because of the difficult availability of its ingredients, above all chicken giblets. Pork fegatelli: pork liver wrapped in a kind of net made by the peritoneum of pork, then spitted with slices of bread and bay leaves. Duck in orange sauce: this recipe dates back to the Medici era and was brought to France by Caterina de’ Medici. Here it became the famous “canard à l’orange”. During the period of the seigniory of the Medici in Florence, in the garden of each villa they had a glass room, called “limonaia” or “orangerie”, where they grow citruses, used to make many dishes of that period. Beans in the flask: ancient and obsolete way to cook “cannellini” beans, putting them into a flask like those for Chianti wine, adding water, garlic and sage, putting the flask into the ashes of the fireplace and cooking them for a long time. Beans all’uccelletto: another ancient way for cooking “cannellini” beans, with tomato paste, garlic, sage and extra-virgin olive oil. A simple recipe, an incomparabile taste! Biscuits from Prato: incorrectly called “cantuccini” or “cantucci”, they are made with flour, almonds with their skin, eggs and sugar. Traditionally they are paired with Vin Santo. Castagnaccio: typical sweet tart made with chestnuts flour, rosemary and pine nuts. We can add also raisins, walnut kernels, dried figs or other dried fruit. Cenci or Chiacchiere: typical fried sweet made in Florence during the carnival period. Flour, eggs and sugar. Rice pancakes: rice boiled in milk, eggs and sugar. We fry them in oil. It is a typical sweet for St. Joseph’s day, the 19th of March. Pandiramerino: a bread-based sweet, typical of the Lent period, made with fluor, sugar, raisins and rosemary. Flat cake with grapes: bread dough, sugar, aniseeds and "canaiolo" grapes. This particular dessert can be made just for few weeks in Autumn, when "canaiolo" grapes become ripe. Florentine flat cake: this is the most representative cake of Florence. It is a typical carnival sweet, but now we can find it all year round. Its ingredients: bread dough, sugar, lard, orange, lemon, eggs and nutmeg. Wines The wines produced in Tuscany are innumerable! We shall mention and describe just some of the most important having D.O.C. and D.O.C.G. denomination. Florence, being a city, can not obviously grow grapes and consequently produce wine, but on the hills around it and in the whole region of Tuscany they produce some of the best wines in the world: the most famous is Chianti. Chianti Classico: Chianti, the area in which Chianti Classico wine has been produced for centuries, is that part of Tuscany that is bordered to the north by the suburbs of Florence, to the east by the Chianti Mountains, to the south by the city of Siena and to the west by the valleys of the Pesa and Elsa rivers. The area is traversed by the Superhighway of the Palio. It is a land of ancient traditions that was civilized in remote periods first by the Etruscans, who left many traces of their activity in the wine sector, and then by the Romans. In the Middle Ages, the cities of Florence and Siena battled for control over the zone. Villages and monasteries, castles and fortresses appeared during that period and many of them were later transformed into villas and country residences when times were more tranquil. It was then that spaces were cleared in the vast forests of chestnuts and oaks for the cultivation of vines and olive trees… (the complete text at www.chianticlassico.com) Other important wines of Tuscany are: -Brunello di Montalcino: Visually Brunello di Montalcino is a limpid and brilliant wine with a lively garnet colour and with an intense, persistent, full and ethereal odour. In its odour can be detected the scents of brushlands, aromatics woods, small fruit, a light trace of vanilla and fruity jams , all combined… Grapes: Sangiovese -Morellino di Scansano: It is produced in the municipality of Scansano and part of municipalities of Manciano, Migliano in Toscana, Grosseto, Campagnatico, Semproniano e Roccalbegna, in the province of Grosseto. Grapes: Sangiovese 85% minimum. -Vernaccia di San Gimignano: The vines of the well-known VERNACCIA di SAN GIMIGNANO, have been mentioned for centuries throughout various official and scientific documents, literature etc. Its well merited fame derives from its quality and appraisable characteristics… -Vino Nobile di Montepulciano: Today Montepulciano reveals in its historical heritage (and more besides) presenting itself to visitors as a kind of island between two expanses, Val di Chiana and Val d’Orcia. A corner of paradise inserted in south-east Tuscany a few kilometres from the border with Umbria… -Sassicaia: A wine that had Cabernet Sauvignon as its primary component represented a radical shift from the traditional Tuscan and Piedmontese varietals of Sangiovese and Nebbiolo. No one had ever considered making a wine crafted along Bordeaux lines on Italian soil, much less in a region not yet established viticulturally… -Ornellaia: The bunches were hand-picked into 15 kg bins, and the fruit was carefully graded and selected on a double sorting table, before and after destemming, After a light crushing, each variety and vineyard block was vinified separately giving birth to a total of 51 different base wines each interpreting the considerable diversity of the Estate’s terroirs.. A week-long fermentation was carried out at 26-30°C in stainless steel, followed by a maceration of 18 days. Malolactic fermentation took place in oak barrels (70% new and 30% once used)… Grapes variety: 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 25% Merlot, 12% Cabernet Franc, 3% Petit Verdot. Vin Santo: the “holy wine” of Tuscany . Vin Santo is a wine made from raisins and follows a complex elaboration enriched by the experience of many centuries of Tuscan farmers. The grapes used for this particular wine are all white (malvasia, trebbiano, san colombano), but after the harvest they all follow a particular procedure. Immediately after harvest the single bunches of grapes are hung up in aireated rooms where by January they will slowly become raisons. This procedure allows to loose most of the water that had been filling the grapes and will increase the percentage of fruit-sugar which during fermentation will turn into alcohol… Wine tasting courses in Florence !

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Holidays & Cookery in Tuscany

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Casella di testo: Pellegrino Artusi “La scienza in cucina e l’arte del mangiar bene”

Caterina de’ Medici

She brought her Florentine cooks

to France, laying the foundations

of the great French cuisine

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Casella di testo: Vin Santo of Chianti Az. Agricola Montefioralle

A typical cooking class

Set for a wine tasting class

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Chianti Classico

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Biondi Santi

Brunello di Montalcino