On Bread in Florence

Hello Kitty Handwich

Finding ourselves in Rome last weekend we went for a pizza in a swish steel and glass pizz'enorma'erria. Expectations were low but, soon after we got our drinks they brought us a basket of bread that was better than any bread I have eaten in Florence this year. Dense but holey, chewy and tasty bread with real flavour and a great crust. If anyone can find bread this good in Florence then please tell me where before we leave.

For those that do not know, Tuscan bread and hence the majority of Florentine bread is saltless. This is possibly due to punitive salt taxes in past centuries but, as I can now buy a kilo of sea salt in the supermarket for 11 cents, they don't have that excuse any more.

Saltless bread is an acquired taste. Though I am used to it now, it is not something I would choose to eat when offered a choice.  But the lack of salt is almost a side note, for what I have been yearning for whilst here in Florence is good bread full stop. Give me good Tuscan bread without salt if you want but just give me something that is not overly dry, light as a balloon, and that goes stale the day after you cut into it. Most importantly give me bread that actually tastes of something.

I come from England and in England we used to have a tradition of great baking. Industrialisation came along with their chorleywood process and knocked most artisanal bakers out of business. Now, finding good bread in England is not easy. It is available though and when it's good it's really good. However, we don't really expect good bread in England; expectations of food in England are, perhaps unfairly, different to those here in Italy.

At home I have a copy of Carol Fields' The Italian Baker and the cover of that book shows a wonderful display of handmade loaves, cakes, pizzas, breadsticks, and more. This was what I thought Italy would have to offer me when I got here. And in some bakeries I go into the display is wonderful. But so many of the actual loaves are a real disappointment. They look great on the shelf; all shapes and sizes covered in flour tempting me to buy them. But so many of them are lacking when eaten. They're fine for whipping up a pappa all pomodoro or a panzanella but for a bit of toast and jam, they're useless.

The one time that I really 'got' Tuscan bread was after we had finished picking grapes at the vendemmia last summer. Plates stacked high with panini were passed round as we stood drinking chianti from plastic cups. Those panini were bread with prosciutto or salami. No butter, no salad, nothing but bread and meat. And it worked. The salty pork combined with the saltless bread worked a treat.

That's a good food memory for me but, for all the wonderful things I have eaten in this year in Italy, Tuscan bread will play a very minor part in this years' gastrotour memories.

To help me recall in years to come and for anyone else who finds themselves in need, here is a little bit about the bread we buy and eat and where we buy it from:

Schiacciata
Schiacciata is basically what we would call focaccia back home in the UK except it is, of course, better than any focaccia I have eaten at home. That said, I live in Cambridge, which is a gastronomic wasteland. And I don't get out much.

Schiacciata is basically a bread made from whatever dough is at hand. It is thrown or rolled out into a flat rectangle shape, dimpled, then sloshed with oil and salt before baking. As most people round here bake saltless Tuscan bread most schiacciata dough is saltless.

There are two main types that I know of, the soft (morbida) type that is easier for the kids to eat and then the more 'rustic' and crusty type. The former tends to have smaller air holes in the dough and a thinner, softer crust. It is more like the focaccia that we know back home.

The other type is closer to the ciabbate we get back home. It has larger holes in it and a thicker crunchier crust; leading me to believe that the dough is much wetter than the other type.

Schiacciata also comes with toppings like pizza and with fillings for panini.

Most unavoidably though, it comes with salt. Huge amounts of salt. Tongue and lip burning quantities of the stuff. If you were worried where all the salt went for the Tuscan bread, worry not, it's here - on top of the schiacciata. So, when the ladies in the forno hand over a nice soft piece of schiacciata for your baby to munch on, you may want to think about cutting the top off before your child gets their week's dose of sodium in one hit.

Salt aside, this stuff is wonderful. Florence's equivalent of Rome's famous pizza bianca. Often served hot, greasy with olive oil and deliciously salty. Good on it's own, great with a filling. Most of the kids we know snack on it after school on the way to the park. If there are concerns about salt intake over here I haven't seen any signs of them.

So, I hear you ask, where to we get the best schiacciata in Florence? Well, I have no idea. Ask someone who actually knows this place. Then ask another.

If you are anywhere near Lucca, visit this forno.

As good as the schiacciata it is here, I am sorry to say I haven't had any as good as the focaccia in Lucca'a Forno Amadeo Giusti (an hour up the road for us). If I were able to, I would leave my family in Italy and fill my car with their focaccia so I could eat my way back to England.

Here is a run down on where we buy schiacciata in Florence. These places are listed as much for their geography (on the west of the city) as their schiacciata.

Forno  Coverciano:
This is the nearest forno to us. It's a small, busy bakery staffed by some friendly ladies with nice white hats on. I don't bother buying their Tuscan bread because I don't like it. As authentic as it may be. May be because it is authentic.

What I do buy is their pizzicotto and their schiacciata. They do two types of schiacciata: one is made, I assume, with a softer flour and hence has a cakier texture. The other is more traditional. Very crunchy and crisp with big air holes. Obviously using a wetter dough. The former has the very slightly sour taste that makes me drool for Lucca's focaccia.

I've never bought it hot from here but it's good at any temperature.

Pugi
Pugi is listed in the Food Lover's Guide to Florence as being the Florentines' favourite schiacciata bakery. It is good, really good. And the turnover is such that you can usually get it hot. They also do really good pastries and cakes too. As well as pizza by the slice. And the staff are very nice and friendly.

Piazza San Marco, where they have an outlet, is fortunately where my bus into town stops, so I have had ample opportunity this year to plough my way through a few hundred Euros worth of baked goods here. San Marco is not the most attractive place to sit and eat your oily pickings but whatever you buy won't last long I can assure you. And the convent opposite is a wonder and the accademia is round the corner for David.

My Italian teacher told me that the original Pugi on Viale dei Amicis is better. I've been there once and couldn't tell the difference. It was still good. [It's worth noting that Pizza Man have an outlet a couple of doors up from this Pugi. Their Neopolitan pizza crust is really something to behold - almost like sourdough pizza. A good stopping point for dough boys and girls].

In Central Florence, I really like the panini from a hole in the wall (see picture above) in, I think, Via del Presto next to the Casa di Dante. They fill schiacciata for you with a an array of Tuscan fillings.Yum.
Forno Sartoni, behind Coin, on Via de' Cerchi is in the book and does great schiacciata, pizze and pastries. Their bread is good too.
Pane Olio & Pizza, on the corner of Piazza Lorenzo Ghiberti and Via della Mattonaia, just behind the mercato sant'ambrogio. These guys do really good schiacciata, great pizza, and good bread. I always spend a fortune in here. Maybe it's expensive....
In the piazza sant'ambrogio there is also another good forno.
Forno in Via dell' Ariento opposite the mercato centrale is good from what I remember but it's too small for me to fit the buggy in so I don't go often!
There is also plenty available in both of the main markets.


Tuscan and non-Tuscan Bread
Hmmm. Where to buy your loaf of bread? Well, I don't really have a favourite place to buy bread as I don't really have a favourite bread here in Florence.

At Forno Coverciano I buy pizzicotto, it's halfway between schiacciata and Tuscan bread. It's plumpy and soft (not too soft) dense and good for toast. That's as much as I know about it. It tastes good too of course despite the lack of salt and is pretty well my default bread choice here in Florence.

Down town, I  may buy a Pugliese (with salt!) near Mercato Sant'Ambrogio and the bread at Forno Sartori is pretty good too.

In the Co-op I can get a Pane Mughello (a region of Northern Tuscany known for its farming and agriculture) which is a great dense sourish loaf. At EsseLunga I get supermarket baked crusty white loaves not dissimilar to those I get back in England.

The best Tuscan saltless bread I have eaten was at Da Sergio's Trattoria and from Forno Sartori.

If there is a great bakery making good artisanal bread with or without salt in Florence then let me know and I'll try and find it before we head home. If anywhere makes anything as good as that Roman bread I ate I'd be very surprised. And very happy too.

Gelato di Firenze - Ice Cream in Florence - A Map and Advice on Where To Go

As someone who tends to live his life through guidebooks and travel and food websites, relying regularly on the opinions of others, I have learnt to take reviews of gelaterias in Florence with a pinch of salt. Take any gelateria in central Florence that has been around for a year or more and there will be a list of glowing reviews stating 'this is the best gelato in Florence. No, in Italy'. Underneath will be a review that states 'no, this is not as good as it used to be, xxxxxx round the corner is way better now'. (See the Trip Advisor forum on 'Where is the Best Gelato in Florence')

My favourite is a lengthy post on Chowhound about gelato in Florence. Someone visited Cavini on their last day. They got there when it opened and proceeded to eat nearly all of the 40 odd flavours on offer. At the end of this session they declared it to be the best gelateria in Florence. They had been directed to it by a local (read: 'if the locals go there it must be good') and few tourists knew of  it (bingo! the holy grail when looking for good food in Italy!). But really it was just another good gelateria in Florence. There are lots of them. It's no better than the famous Badiani up the road or the other famous ones in central Florence.

It may be that some people can visit a couple of gelaterias in the morning, another couple in the afternoon and more the next day and then order them by merit at the end of the trip. For me, having visited most of the recommended ones, I have eaten mediocre gelato in the same place I have eaten outstanding gelato. Some days it has been pretty ordinary, some days sublime. Is that to do with the gelato? or me? the time of day? or the position of the moon? I don't know. It's the same with wine. One day a particular Chianti will blow me away. Another day the same Chianti will taste dull.

There is no shortage of great gelato here in Florence. In fact, I would say of all the food we eat over here, the gelato is the most consistently good. They may not know how to make bread here, but they certainly know how to make gelato. We are overwhelmed with great ice cream in Forence.

When I drive into Florence I usually park at the mercato Sant'Ambrogio. From here there is a direct route to the Duomo at the center of the city. In the 8 months or so we have been here, three new gelaterias have opened up on this sub-1km route from Sant Ambrogio to the Duomo. It's almost become a gelato trail. As I write, a new one is about to open on piazza dei ciompi to accompany the other 5 already on this straight. Experience tells me it too will be great gelato.

The end of May sees the Firenze Gelato Festival. Almost as if there were room for any more gelato in Florence.

What follows is a list of places to get good gelato with a map. These are places I learnt of from guide books and from our travels in  the city. Some days I will take the baby into town just to visit a gelateria. I don't think I have ever been recommended a place by a local. This city's top food spots have been so well picked over ex-pats and tourists that I don't believe there are any places that only the locals go to any more....

If you are looking for the best gelato in Florence, or the best gelato in Firenze, you could do worse than start with this list. If you have found better gelato in Firenze then let me know.


An Abbreviated List of Good Gelaterias in Florence

Vestri - Vestri is first and foremost a chocolate shop with another branch in Arezzo (and one in Miami!). They do however carry a good selection of gelato and the chocolate gelato here is superb, as is the hot chocolate. It's a nice place to sit and watch the world go by too.


Gelateria Il Sorriso This is one of those places that you can impress your friend and fellow gourmet travellers with. It's out in the suburbs. It has that ace 'no tourists' factor and the all important 'off the beaten track' cache that will impress any less adventurous gastronauts. Joking aside, the gelato is excellent. Though in look and feel the place is a little more scruffy and urban,  the gelato reminded me of Badiani. Again, soft, luxurious, and generous portions. Opposite the COOP, next to a good pizzeria and a tripe stand. Gastrotastic.

Gelateria Cavini Looking a bit run down on the busy car-bound piazza delle Cure, Cavini is cetainly worth a visit. A great range of flavours, some pretty good gelato but not good enough for me to wax lyrical about. Unlike this guy who tried 35 out of the 40 flavours on offer: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/262205 (though this was over 5 years ago).


Gelateria Santa Trinita Just in the oltrano next to the Santa Trinita bridge. Referred to by one friend as, wait for it, 'the best gelateria' in Florence. Obviously it's not!


Gelateria Carabe' This Sicilian gelateria is just down the road from the Academia where Michaelangelo's David lives. For that reason alone it should be one of the most popular gelateria's in Florence. For some reason it's not. It's rarely busy. But it is good. It's small unpretentious, family run. Focus is on Siciallian flavour such as Almond, lemon, pistacchio, but they have your usual, chocolate etc. I have had mediocre gelato from here in winter time when it was really quiet. In the summer, when the turnover is higher then it is consistently good.

Vivoli This is perhaps the most famous gelateria in Florence. Every guidebook and website mentions it. Especially the riso flavour. In fact, the first place we came when we got to Florence was this place. As recommended by my wife who used to bring tour groups here. Is it the best? I don't think so but I have been only twice and have eaten a lot of gelato since. But it's good. In my experience, the staff are surly but that is never a major problem. It is a small, dark, old fashioned looking bar/gelateria and would be easy to miss if it wasn't so busy.

Bar Latteria Tre A The gelato for sale here at the latteria 'Tre A' in the main piazza in Settignano is produced at 'L'Erta Del Bau' This is not fancy, luxurious, or exciting gelato but it is very good. As we pass the latteria in Settignano on the school run, I have eaten more of this gelato than any other in Florence. I think my kids are actually 67% L'Erta Del Bau gelato now. We are very lucky to have such good gelato available in such in an unpreposessing place.

L'Erta Del Bau This gelateria, I think, used to be based in Settignano. Either way, the gelato produced here is available at the latteria 'Tre A' in the main piazza in Settignano. This is not fancy, luxurious, or exciting gelato but it is very good. As we pass the latteria in Settignano on the school run, I have eaten more of this gelato than any other in Florence. I think my kids are actually 67% L'Erta Del Bau gelato now. As a final note, it's worth pointing out that this gelataria is close to the kid friendly Museo Stibbert.

Rivareno Gelateria Rivareno appeared out the blue in early 2010. It has the modernist look of Grom but even more so. However the atmosphere is a little more relaxed and the staff a little friendlier. They are a franchise. The gelato is closer to Badiani's luxurious creaminess than Grom's austere flavour explosion. They seem to serve it a little softer too. Softer (ie. wamer) is good for me as the flavours work better. The mango, morena, blood orange, and chocolate are all excellent. Really, well worth visiting.

Grom - Grom is where things get serious. If you go here to get your gelato then you shouldn't let pleasure get in the way of your intellectual enjoyment on your gelato. The staff here are helpful if you want the perfect flavour combination or details on the ingredients. But it always feels a bit joyless to me. The gelato is, of course, top notch. The salted caramel is wonderful but you get the impression that your opinion is of limited importance to them. Grom is a chain but the they work very hard not to compromise on the quality of their gelato. They even have a store in NYC now.

Festival del Gelato - Festival del Gelato is the toy shop of gelaterias in Florence. If you've got young kids bring them here. They have a huge range of gelato made with chocolate (candy) bars, nutella, different fruits, they have waffles too.

Perche' No - Perche' No has a Slow Food sticker in the window. It aspires to Slow Food ideals. Quality ingredients, no mass production. It's gelato is excellent with some interesting flavours. I like the chocolate and rum. I also had a great cheesecake their. Their pistacchio is excellent too. The shop is small and the staff are friendly.

Gelateria Badiani  - This, to me, is the queen of the gelaterias in Florence. The gelato is wonderful. It tastes decadent, rich, and expensive. The shop makes you feel under-dressed when you go into it. The staff are impeccably turned-out and not particularly friendly. But the gelato is luxurious.

Gelateria dei Neri - This place is often listed as one of the best, if not the best gelateria in Florence. I've only been once and was not that impressed. It was good but not great. But that may be because I was tired and cold or it was the wrong time of day, or I picked the wrong flavour. Or maybe the moon was in the wrong place.....

Mordilatte - This gelateria has opened up just down the road from where we live. It opened two days after I wrote this post. Initial impressions after our first visit for a free tasting were good. Rich and well made. A bit too cold though! They were having trouble serving it....

My Map of Good Gelaterie in Florence
[Those I know or want to know as of May 2010]

View I Gelati di Firenze in a larger map



More Info and Links:

Part way through compiling this list I came across this top 10 gelaterias in Florence.
Then Faith Willinger's piece: http://www.faithwillinger.com/travel/florentine-gelato-crawl
And of course Judy aka Divina Cucina also has a page: http://www.divinacucina.com/newsletter13.html

There are of course loads of online discussions about gelato in Florence:
 Chowhound: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/262205
 Trip Advisor: http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g187895-i68-k592000-Where_is_the_best_Gelato_in_Florence-Florence_Tuscany.html
The Food Section: http://www.thefoodsection.com/foodsection/2004/06/firenze_summer_.html
Virtual tourist: http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/tt/6d48e/#TL

Taste 2010 Florence - A Proper Food Show

On Monday I headed to the last day of the Taste food festival with Prof D and our two baby girls. Anticipation (or was it impatience) was palpable as we spent an hour on the Florence circonvallazione stuck, hungry, in a marmellata di traffico. Making this Florentine event not disimilar to one in London before we had even got there.

All comparisons with UK food shows were discarded as we entered. €10 entry plus the sensible idea of €5 for a wine glass to do your sampling with and we were in. The event was housed in a large disused station to the West of the historic centre. The layout was clean and accessible and the decoration elegant. The dark walls and counters were artfully lit to emphasise the food. Similar shows in the UK would be all bright strip lights with every bit of discarded salami and oil smear illuminated for all to see. They do aesthetics well these Italians.

Nearly all the exhibitors on show had something for us to taste, so we moved from hams and cheeses, to oil and vinegars, beers and wine, spumante with edible silver, dense chocolate cakes, walnut liquor, truffle pates, cured lard, and on and on. Each producer willing us to taste and to talk us through what it was we were trying.

As an aside, I seem to have unwittingly perfected an expression that tells the viewer that I know exactly what they are talking about; that I understand every word. This is of course, rarely the case. I think I need to reclaim the dumb foreigner look. 'Speak slowly signore; sono straniero!'

However, for this event, explanations were translated (into upstate Noo Yawk) in full by Prof D. Leaving us only with the problem of how to taste everything without completely destroying our palates. A tough and unenviable situation to be in I'm sure you'll agree.

The first great product we tried was nduja a spiced spreadable pork sausage from Spilinga. Unctuous. We then went on to truffle pate on a stand that had a covered glass dish with a few thousand Euros worth just flaunting themselves. 'No you can't buy us! Smell, yes. But we are too expensive! And besides, we are not for sale and your English palates are no match for our Tuscan earthiness. Va via!'.

The truffle pate of course gave me truffle burps(*) which are just not the thing to have at a cool Italian food fare. It made the smoked trout taste funny too. Here was an opportunity to tell a producer that I used to do what he does now. We could be friends! But my Italian failed me. What is the Italian for 'I used to smoke fish too until I left my job to come and change nappies in Florence'?

On the next stretch of counter we sampled some truly glorious salame. I mean really good. Senza preservatives, soft, meaty, er complex, erm... ....mouth feel? Erm. Good. So I took the card and made a note to buy some in the shop......which of course didn't have any.

A couple more legs and we were ready for lunch. Readers who frequent food shows in the UK will be pleased to know that the canteen here was as mediocre and uninspiring as at home. Relatively I mean. In that, the food here was not dissimilar to an ordinary cafe in Florence. But an ordinary cafe in florence is of course way better than an ordinary cafe in the UK. Why don't these shows organise catering with their producers who are exhibiting? Is it that difficult?

That said, my panino was good and we left the chic white leathered dining area in a state commensurate with having been occupied by a 2 year old and a one year old. And scarpered.

Hitting the hard trail of the show again we moved, as if beckoned, to the start of the artisanal beer section. Now, if there is one thing that I am missing food wise in Florence, it is beer. I'm not saying that nice beer can't be found here (these guys sell good beer) but you have to search it out and there is certainly no flat warm beer from casks. Proper beer. Well kept, if you will. But the people occupying the beer section were generous in their attempts to prove me wrong. There were stouts, lagers, wheat beers, pale ales, coffee and chocolate beers (never a good thing), and more. Of the two I bought was one that was, somewhat inevitably, referred to as 'tipo Inglese'. 'Ah, that's why I liked it'. Good as it was/is, it is also the most expensive beer I have ever bought (piss-water in various dodgy nightclubs excluded).

From here we had coffee, cake, truly wonderful chocolates, biscotti, and silver leaf in a cup with spumante. (I have no idea).

After we'd reached the last stand and the last notch on our belts we headed to the shop where I turned down the tin of tuna for €28 (still, if it's bluefin they'll all be gone soon) and bought beer, chocolate, cake, something called tarese that looks like bacon, more beer, coffee, more chocolate and bresaola.

The chocolate, which I didn't taste on the way round the show has been a real revelation. I am very keen on salted chocolate and this stuff has 'Sale Dolce di Cervia'. Something that was completely unknown to me and works so well in chocolate.

So, a great day discovering and tasting new things. If you are coming to Florence next year, I'd recommend a visit to the show. Whether I can persuade Dr B that it would be good for us to fly in for it, I don't know.....

[* - Dr B just read this through for me and remarked that Prof D had told her about truffle burps at the Villa today. In the evening after the show Prof D had gone to his usual jujitsu class where, after a hard workout, he took a shower. On leaving the shower he released a large belch which he and his fellow athletes admired for it's truffle aroma.]

The Fat and The Fattoria of the Land

Sometimes, life in Italy can be awkward. Like when you invite some Italians over for lunch. You warn them that it will be an English style Sunday roast. You present them with some roast pork; it doesn’t have crackling; it is 30% fat and then you completely fail to carve it properly. They explain to you that you are doing it all wrong and that you should have cut your joint up into chops and that you can by a suckling pig at the central market.

In England, you cock up your Sunday roast and your guests say: ‘No, this is lovely. Thanks ever so much.’ Not until they leave and are out of earshot would they pass comment on your inability to serve them a proper meal. Maybe honesty is a good thing. Sometimes it is unwelcome.

To be fair to myself and to my guests, it was perhaps a little risky to pre-order a piece of meat, from a breed of pig I hadn’t cooked with before, without having seen it. But it was all part of a bigger plan (and a bigger meat order). To go back to Chianti; to meet my Twitter buddy Ray; to see his pigs and to buy his pork. Sunday lunch was always going to be an afterthought.

Twitter has been good to me over here. Tips on sightseeing and tourism, cooking advice, banter with other English speakers (something in very short supply outside the house). It keeps me connected to the UK and it helps me navigate my way through daily Tuscan life. And Twitter led me to Ray.

Ray has a large estate in Chianti just outside the town of Castellina. Way back when, he set up Tuscan Enterprises, a villa rental agency, from there and now he also runs his estate where he raises the traditional Tuscan pig: the Cinta Senese. He turns this pork into delicious salume, he grows olives for oil and produces very good Chianti too.

On our arrival, the beautiful location was at its best with a clear blue sky; the remnants of the previous week’s snow-fall adding interest for the kids. Ray was waiting for us and his wife, Rita, had prepared prosciutto, salami, oil and bread for tasting.

After baby feeding and chat, Ray took me into the ‘laboratorio’ (an Italian word used for most small food production premises as well as craft workshops) the building where his pigs are butchered and the cured products are made. From the outside it had the appearance of an old stables block but inside were very modern climate controlled curing rooms and a spotless butchery.

He led me around these rooms showing me hams and salamis at different stages of production. All walls clad in hygienic plastic that I know well from the smokery. Despite its history and rustic image, nearly all salami and ham are cured in these very modern surroundings nowadays. Environmental legislation dictates it. Even with no one working there, we weren’t allowed to go into the main meat processing area lest it be contaminated.

The main ingredients or these products are reared a stones throw away. The piglets and younger pigs are housed in 2 barns where they are kept under a watchful eye until they are ready to be released out into the outdoor rearing areas. So we went to see the mums and their squeaky and timid piglets keeping warm under IR lamps.

Outside, the ground was rocky, wet, and muddy; the few pigs we saw seemed content splodging around under the oak trees. Though Ray explained that they don’t like the wet very much. 

The photo is of Pippo who Ray told us liked to show off by walking over rocky areas that were particularly hazardous and uncomfortable for them.

The Cinta Senese is a rare breed or heritage breed that was bred back from near extinction in the late 90s. It has a black coat with a white saddle or ‘cinta’. In the UK we have saddlebacks and Essex pigs that look a little like them. There is lots more info on Ray’s site.

Returning to the old farmhouse, we were treated to an assaggiare of prosciutto, salami, oil, sun-dried tomatoes, garlic shoots, aubergines in oil, and good bread. This was accompanied by the three wines that are produced from the farm. Conversation and wine flowed. The prosciutto was sweet and fatty, tender and delicious. So too the salami and the soft, fatty finochiona that came home in the car with me and which has disappeared quickly.

Although we spent most of our time their talking about the products and the farm, I never got round to asking Ray why he ran the farm and raised the pigs. He told me there was little or no money in it. This is something that I have heard from another Tuscan farmer and a story not uncommon in the UK. Though Ray doesn’t appear as to be a wide-eyed idealist who is striving for that mythical old Tuscan simplicity.

Despite having been here for 6 months, I am very much a novice on Italian salume but I think I am beginning to understand the difference between good and bad. I know that the better finocciona over here is very soft and that my favourite hams are sweeter. Beyond that I am need of education I think.

Over here in Italy I am regularly confronted with walls or racks full of hams and salumi. I find the choice overwhelming and confusion reigns when choosing what to buy. Having a plate presented to you, ready sliced, with no choice allows you to forget about the selection process and to concentrate on the flavour and the texture. Which is what I did at Ray’s and was well rewarded.

After a long and easy chat over the wine and salume, we packed up the kids and headed off over the Tuscan hills. Back home, I unwrapped my meat purchases and was presented with a very fat loin of pork, a piece of guanciale, an uncured pig jowl, a whole finochiona, and heaps of sausages. A true pork fest.

You know what happened to the loin. The jowl was cooked for about 8 hours and is currently maturing in a kind of fatty, 5spicey, appley sludge destined for some fat noodles. The guanciale has been started and will likely last me until we move out of here. The finochiona has almost all gone.

And, the sausages? Well, see for yourself:

To Beef or Not To Beef or a Trip to find Dario Cechhini of Panzano - "The Most Famous Butcher in The World"

Our second journey into the heart of the Chianti region was again accompanied by a continuous drizzle of rain. The road from Florence to Greve (and on to Panzano) is not generally pretty in this weather though the vista, when glimpsed thorough the low-lying clouds, was mistily glorious. And it got better the further we drive away from Florence. Those famous rolling hills dotted with the ancient farmhouses of wealthy Brits. Like a browner, less green Cotswolds. A bit. Sort of.

For Dr B’s birthday I had planned a trip to the world famous butcher Dario Cecchini’s restaurant for a Mac Dario. His riposte to the world of fast food. We arrived early, working on the assumption that any world famous butcher would be overrun with likeminded tourists vying to touch the hem of his butcher’s apron.

His butchers' shop is the Tuscan culinary equivalent of Big Ben. Since hitting the headlines with his funeral for the bistecca he has appeared on Anthony Bourdain’s tv series, Gary Rhodes’ tv series, and had a large section of Bill Buford’s great book Heat given over to him. As well as numerous article in the press and online. In short, he is very well known outside of his native country and there aren’t many butchers you can say that about.

On entering his shop we were immediately made welcome with small tumblers of wine, crostini, finnochiona, and fettunta. The equivalent of those small plates of cut up sausages that you get back home. With, perhaps, just a touch more culinary grace.

In the counter of the beautifully preserved and tiled shop were (vacuum packed) packs of beef*, the famous and delicious burro del Chianti, on a butcher’s block was Dario’s porchetta and through a glass door we could see whole hind legs of the famous Spanish beef he imports. (Whilst we chatted, an Italian and a Canadian man started shouldering these great trunks of beef into a van. Apparently a lot of work happens at a 'laboratorio' elsewhere in the town).

When the friendly staff realised we were here primarily to eat, we were whisked up a staircase to the Officina. Here the open grill fire was being lit and fuelled by old vines (not, unfortunately for our lunch) and the long table was set for lunch. On the table were ‘Il Profumo Del Chianti’ (a flavoured salt), and some squeezy bottles containing a mustard sauce, a tomato sauce, and a sweet chilli sauce. The latter made by Judy.

The menu for lunch is simple. There are two options: the Mac Dario or the Accoglienza (which loosely translates as ‘the reception’ or welcome). We plumped for a Mac Dario but when we saw the Accoglienze we ordered one of those to share too. I mean it would have been an insult to the man and to his meat not to try everything. Wouldn't it?

The burger, like nearly all burgers over here, was served without a bun. (Which is obviously very wrong). But it wasn’t totally Atkins approved as it was coated in breadcrumbs before frying. It came with beautifully flavoured roast potatoes, soft red onions, and some salad. The burger was rare and had a great beefy flavour. Not in the mold of your traditional US style, but wonderfully tender and flavourful.

The Mac Dario

The Accoglienza was, inevitably, a more interesting and varied affair. Along with Dario’s well known and frankly awesome ‘sushi del chianti’ and his ‘tonno del chianti’ was his porchetta, and his cosimino (basically a meat loaf). Along with this came the joyous sight of a bowl of raw vegetables to eat with oil, vinegar, and the ‘Profumo’. Having been in Tuscany for 6 months now, I was enraptured by this bowl of raw, undressed vegetables. I love celery and carrots and being given a mound to chomp my way through was actually a real pleasure in what soon became a table landscaped with meat.

We thought the porchetta was a little dry and the meatloaf pretty ordinary but the sushi was wonderful and the tonno was great too. If you go, order a burger and the Accoglienza to share. It’ll be more than enough.

tonno del chianti

After we had filled every last nook and cranny of our digestive systems with meat we strolled through the drizzle up to the old part of the town. Here was another butcher’s shop and no doubt close by were some sage Tuscans nodding knowingly at the tourists and remarking that Dario’s was no longer the best butcher in Panzano and that actually this lesser known one was in fact a lot better. A trait that appears to be as common to Florence as it does to the UK. 

When lightly soaked by the persistent Chiantishire rain, we walked back down Dario’s to do some shopping and the fun began again when Dr B and our friends T’Una engaged Dario in some light-hearted conversation.

'to beef or not to beef'

Dr B made it pretty clear to Dario that his views on British palates (which went something along the lines of: ‘well you can’t eat horseradish with beef, because you can’t drink wine with horseradish. And anyway you Brits don’t really understand wine’) were somewhat misguided. But he didn't budge.

There then ensued a lively discussion that covered ‘Slow Food’ (‘a religion’ – Dario is not a member), MacDonalds, favoured restaurants in Florence (of the two he mentioned Ruth’s vegetarian raised some eyebrows), Alice Waters, and Michael Pollan.

Interspersed with this chat, Dario occasionally pulled down books from his collection on the shelves of the shop and opened them to pages with photos of himself. Dario with Prince Charles (whom he refused to bow to); Dario in Jamie’s Italy; Dario with Alice Waters. And of course he did utter the immortal 'to beef or not to beef' phrase. A man of poetry as well as of butchery.

He seemed like very good company, from the little I could understand and from the reaction of the Italian speakers amongst us. He is a man who is obviously very passionate about what he does. He is also a man who likes to have fun and knows that his big personality is a financial asset. But without products to back up his profile he would disappear from our books, tv, and magazines quickly.

He is of course a showman, a celebrity, an opinionated man but he produces great food. The burro del Chianti I brought home is wonderful and the peposo notturno was just superb. There is little doubt we'll be heading back soon for more of everything.

[ * One thing that was not evident in his counter was raw, unadulterated, un-packed meat. This meant that choosing what to buy was not as straightforward as in a normal butchers. I dare say if I'd asked for a specific cut he could have provided it for me. Also, vacuum packing beef is is frowned upon back in England as it is thought to squeeze much of the moisture from the meat.]

Further reading here

In the Guardian here.

I Trippai Di Firenze - Lampredotto and Tripe Stands in Florence

When I was growing up my mum would occasionally cook us tripe and onions. An English dish which is basically honeycomb tripe simmered in milk and served in a thin bechamel. Onto this we would sprinkle malt vinegar, salt, and pepper. It's not a dish that you could persuade many people to eat and I would eat now only for reasons of nostalgia.

Since childhood I have eaten tripe in France both as andouillette and in a stew, in Portugal with white beans, and now in Florence. The Florence lampredotto panino has definitely been the high point for me. Better even than the pig's stomach soup I once ate in Thailand whilst being eyed up as a potential client by prostitutes.

Florence has a number of stalls and stands around the city serving the traditional trippa alla Fiorentina and Lampredotto. Tripe is served either in panini or in small plastic dishes. Traditionally they are served with red wine but the stalls all sell soft drinks too.

Trippa alla Fiorentina is tripe cooked in a thick tomato sauce, whereas the lampredotto (the fourth stomach of the cow) is cooked in a broth  and then served with some of the boiling liquor and either salsa verde or a picante sauce or both. Some stands also serve tripe served in other ways - with potatoes or chard for example. At least one, Nerbone in the Mercato Centrale also serves bollito (boiled beef) for those not willing to venture into the arena of cooked stomach consumption.

As well as the tourists frequenting the inner city stands, many locals regularly stop by for a quick lunch.

I've put together the map below using the listings in Slow Food's Osterie d'Italia as a starting point. It is not by any means definitive. I don't know the south of Florence very well or the suburbs so if anyone can offer improvements then please let me know. I'll update with pictures and more detail after visiting them.


View Lampredotto and Tripe in Florence in a larger map

A New Year's Eve to Remember - Or The Hunt For The Great Meal

Let's start at the end. The end of the last day of 2009. The end of our trip down South to Pompeii and the beautiful island of Ischia. Picture the scene, a hotel rooftop overlooking Vesuvius with firecrackers exploding across the night sky. Two happy families from opposite sides of the pond joining together to celebrate in Italy on New Years Eve.

And what better way to celebrate than with that traditional Italian New Year's delicacy 'il Ambourger'. But not any burgers. This is not the UK remember, this is Italy and this the south with it's fertile volcanic soil, it's amazing bakers, it's wonderful ingredients, it's love of food. So these are no ordinary burgers, these are super ordinary - ambourger ordinarissimo.

For encased in a sesame seed bun of the kind I thought you couldn't even get here in Italy, is a tough gray oval of mdf that must surely have come from Tesco's value range. This is no 'il Mac'. No, this is a burger worthy of an English B road burger van. And this is New Year's Eve in Italy.

We do our best with our limited supply of ketchup sachets and we toast 2010 with crap red wine or milk in plastic cups. Goodbye 2009 on this NYE  to remember.

The reason for the burgers was NYE. Nearly everywhere was closed. The usually bustling streets around our hotel were deserted. We wanted pizza and the only place open selling pizza refused us takeaway. We were late back from Naples - the home of pizza. We'd walked dimly lit backstreets searching for authentic Neapolitan pizza but the place we were looking for was closed too. A restauranteur took mercy on us and dispatched us with a carrier bag filled with insipid, saladless burgers wrapped in foil.

Maybe if we hadn't been late coming back from Ischia we would have had more time to find somewhere open. But we were late coming back because we were late having lunch. Over an hour we had waited (with 4 very hungry kids) at Il Pontile after the waiter had taken our order for salads, pasta al pomodoro, burger. He then had the temerity to berate us for complaining about the slow service. The food was 'ok'. The experience wasn't.

Maybe we would have left our hotel earlier if, the previous night, we hadn't been out late living it up in a ristorante 'speciale' where the owner sat down with us and created a menu 'degustazione' before ours eyes with some of his favourite dishes that he described so effusively I was expecting him to weep when he had finished composing the menu. I wept when I saw the bill. And I wondered what it was that was so 'speciale'. And I longed for that increasingly elusive 'great meal' in Italy.

But the food (and the service) was better than the night before at the restaurant nearer our hotel. Where this time the owner ignored us, the mussels were still bearded and the secondi took half an hour to arrive after we had finished the primi.

And so it is that 2010 begins with a desire and determination to have a great meal in Italy. To sit and eat our way through three or so courses of great food and to get to the end and think ..... that really was a great meal. I think that is going to be easier without 3 kids in tow but with or without them we'll find it.

La Fettunta

La Fettunta as someone kindly pointed out to me means 'oily slices' though it could also mean 'annointed slices' which sounds more appetising. Yesterday the employees of Villa i Tatti along with some of their families were invited to what was called 'La Fettunta'. Ostensibly it was a lunch to celebrate the arrival of the 'olio nuovo' - something I hadn't heard of before arriving here - but was also an event for those employees who don't usually get to eat much of what comes out of the I Tatti kitchens.

Although bottles of oil were available for us to pour onto our slices of bread, the main attraction (for me at least) were the large platters and pans conatining the hot food and the porchetta. It was a cold day and we were eating outside so the steaming ribollita and pappa al pomodoro were very welcome. I'd missed the actual barbecuing of the meat but there was plenty left for me to overdose on. Tuscan sausage, chicken portions, and the ribs that are very common around these parts. All coated in salt - a seasoning missing in their bread but made up for in virtually everything else. [And it's so cheap! 11 cents for a kilo of sea salt in our local supermarket].

The ribs are grilled unadorned (salt excepted), so the finished product is a gnaw off the bone experience as opposed to the US style where the meat falls from the bone. Still good nonetheless.

A large part of the fettunta is to say thank you to the non academic staff of the Villa. So the gardeners, cleaners, and construction workers were all there and tucking in. Bottles of I Tatti's Colli Chianti and plastic cups were rested on tractor trailers and much oil sloshed over the bread.

As I said, all the meat had finished cooking by the time I arrived but the fires were still warm and bread was put on to toast. Garlic cloves were provided for rubbing on it before the oil was poured to annoint it.

The limbless pig you can see in the picture is (a/the) porchetta. I'll put my hands up and say I knew nothing of porchetta before coming to Florence. Even though I had visited Tuscany twice before. Back home in Cambridge my friends at the Art of Meat prepare a cut of pork that they call porchetta. Really it is more like 'arista' a skinless rolled loin seasoned with chilli, rosemary, fennel, and garlic. Here, it is basically a small pig with everything except bones and limbs.

The real porchetta is described thus in the Oxford Companion to Italian Food:

Porchetta is the name of a whole boned and roast young pig, of about 50 kilos, a speciality of central Italy, and much loved in Umbria and Lazio, where it is sold from stalls at fairs and festivals. The skin is singed, scalded, and shaved, and the pig boned, the carcass seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic, and wild fennel, then stuffed with its prepared entrails, sewn up, roasted slowly in a wood fired bread oven, and usually eaten cold.

The ones I have seen have had no legs, which are presumably removed to make hams and sausages. I've eaten quite a bit since getting here. The best (and most expensive - €25/Kg) I had was from the Mercato Sant Ambrogio.  The one in the pics wasn't the best I have eaten but it was good and it was the first time I had eaten some of the liver from inside which was obviously a treat.

Towards the end of proceedings people started to take clean plates up with the intention of taking some of the beast home. I inevitably had to join the queue and was given a good chunk to feast on for lunch today.

It was a great lunch time gathering in a cold but beautiful part of the world. I just wish it could have continued a little longer into the afternoon. But apparently some people have to work. Who'd a thunk it?