Why Italians Love to Talk About Food (30 page)

 

Conversations about agriculture took place even in less peculiar situations. Scholars dedicated their lives to formulating rules for farmers and agronomists. Marco Lastri (1731–1811), who lived into his eighties in perfect health, was one of these indefatigable researchers and published the extremely useful manuals
Calendario del seminatore
(The sower's calendar),
Calendario del vangatore
(The digger's calendar), and the aforementioned
Regole per i padroni
. . . , all in 1793, as well as the
Corso di agricoltura di un accademico georgofilo autore della Biblioteca georgica
(Agricultural course of a
Georgophile academic author of the Georgic Library), in five volumes, 1801–1803.

So that enthusiasts and researchers like Marco Lastri might have the opportunity to meet, trade experiences, and discuss and critique their scientific activities, the Accademia dei Georgofili (Georgophile Academy) was established in Florence in 1753 at the initiative of the Lateran canon, Ubaldo Montelatici. The goal of the Academy's members was to conduct experiments and make observations to perfect “the most beneficial Art of Tuscan cultivation.” The Academy was the first organization in Europe to bring together the “great minds intent on the perfection of Agriculture.” It proved how effective the results of theoretical agronomy could be when transferred from cities to rural localities and extended to tenant farmers and peasants quick to comprehend.

With regard to the Tuscans, the journalist and editor Giuseppe Prezzolini recounted:

 

The most civilized people in the world, those Tuscans; with a breeding ingrained and secular, no mere veneer of rote. In a motto, a maxim, a rhyme, a nickname, a remark, you know them for what they are. In that tiny drop of popular sense you feel an experience filtered down through the ages. They have mind-reading manners. The peasant, save in rare cases, shows a depth and humanity uncommon and lofty.
⁵

 

Stendhal agrees with him: “The Tuscan peasant is a singular creature; this race of uncultured husband-men forms what is perhaps the most agreeable society in Europe; and I find it infinitely more attractive than the urban population.”
⁶

 

Everything in Tuscany is simple, precise, robust, linear, and seasoned with wholesome irony. Just think about the names of the dishes: a soup so thick that a spoon will stand up straight in it is called
acquacotta
(cooked water). The people seem vigorous and hearty, uncontaminated, full of a lively sense of humor. Spirits and actions are plain.

In Tuscan cities, as we recall from late medieval history, half the population sympathized with the Guelphs, the other half with the Ghibellines. Within these individual political camps the same clear-cut polarization could be observed: the Guelphs were divided into Whites and Blacks, the Ghibellines into “major” (noblemen, landowners, bankers, etc.) and “minor” (mercants and artisans). Individualism and
personal choice left their mark on the life of social groups, from the relatively large cities to quarters and villages.

The strong expression of individuality, naturally, led to harsh interpersonal antagonism. It is difficult to find anywhere else a
campanilismo
, or parochialism, as developed as it is in Tuscany. The Pisans hate the Livornese and also the Florentines. The Florentines detest the Sienese. Grosseto is hostile to Florence. Livorno lives on mockery directed against Pisa, rendered particularly amusing by the fact that the Tower of Pisa really does lean. One would be hard-pressed to find elsewhere a parochialism so mired in backbiting and cynicism, ideological contention, and even scuffling and brawling. It is also difficult to find another place where people are capable of swearing so furiously. Tuscan swearwords are considered among the most inimitable in the Italian array.

Tuscan cuisine, in its conciseness and essentiality, recalls the military life of ancient Rome. The Tuscan banquet dispenses with the ceremonial: perhaps because Tuscany's history never experienced absolutism, hierarchies based on favoritism, or the distribution of posts according to length of service and court etiquette. Tuscan dishes are easy to prepare, and allow the possibility of rushing out into the fray at the earliest necessity, without losing any time—chewing a chunk of bread along the way. “Beans, cold meat, turnips, stale bread, apples and pears, Marzolino cheese and a little home-grown wine to quench the itch of the cheese. The meal is frugal.”
⁷

Simple in its preparation and damned in its name is chicken
alla diavola
, devil-style, symbol and pride of the Tuscan city of Impruneta, couched among the Chianti hills. It is eaten on October 18, during the traditional feast of St. Luke, the local patron saint. In Pistoia, on market days, roasted thrush and chine of pork, studded with garlic, are prepared.

The cuisine of Tuscany is thus simple and rustic, but demanding and aristocratic as far as quality of ingredients and methods of preparation are concerned. Here, the rules that regulate the pairing of ingredients are exacting. Cooking is done primarily over a live, open fire: each type of food calls for different woods, with their distinctive aromas and ways of burning (high flame, low flame). Thin flour flatbreads are made using hazelnut branches, meat is smoked over beechwood or roasted over olive wood, while bread is baked using oak. Woods from cluster pine, acacia, and chestnut are not suitable for cooking, while arbutus wood is excellent for cooking any type of food. Second in popularity is grilling over coals. Tuscans cook everything on grills arranged over coals: from Florentine-style steak,
bistecca alla fiorentina
, to porcini mushroom caps; from fatback-stuffed game to eels fished from the Arno.

Indeed, eels are not at all a special prerogative of the marshy coast of Venice and Romagna. And although those from Comacchio are more well-known, their sisters from Tuscany inspired the Tuscan burlesque poet Francesco Berni (sixteenth century) to compose a true hymn to them: Berni ridiculed everything, including the noble epic of
Orlando innamorato
, but when it came to eels, he was quite serious:

 

Had I a thousand tongues or more
and were I all mouth, lips, and teeth,
I could not fully sing the praises of the eel,
nor could all my relatives,
who live, have lived, and will live,
that is, future, past, and present.

 

Tuscany loves all that is aromatic, that comes directly from the farm to the plate, still fresh and crisp. Pliny devoted several ample passages to the aromatic herbs of Tuscany in his
Natural History
. He recounts that the local fish welcome the curative qualities of herbs, and that minced parsley is sprinkled in stagnant pools to safeguard the health of the fish: “Fish, too, when found to be in an ailing state in the preserves, are greatly refreshed by giving them green parsley.”
⁸

In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the University of Pisa, which specializes in medicine, selected herbs both for physicians and for cooks. Cosimo de' Medici, ruler of Florence, did not want his city to be inferior, and he had the curator of Pisa's Botanical Garden, Luca Ghini, urgently summoned into his service. Thus the Giardino dei Semplici (Herb Garden) was created in 1545 by order of the ruler of Florence, and also through the efforts of the landscape engineer Niccolò Pericoli, nicknamed “Tribolo” (trouble). Later, in 1753, the garden was turned over to the care of the Accademia dei Georgofili.

The principal condiment for herb-based dishes is, of course, olive oil. Tuscan oil was already celebrated in antiquity, and has not lost its renown since that time. As rulers of the Tuscan region, the Medici required landowners to plant one, two, or three trees each year in every olive grove. Olive trees live for four hundred years or more, so today when we use Tuscan olive oil we are still enjoying the fruits of Medici foresight: the Frantoio, Leccino, Moraiolo, and Pendolino varieties of olives.

Celebrated throughout the world is
pinzimonio
, a combination of oil and vegetables much loved by Tuscans.
Pinzimonio
recalls the
bagna cauda
of Piedmont, the difference
being that the oil here is not heated almost to the boiling point, as it is in Piedmont, but rather is mixed cold with vinegar, adding black pepper and salt. Raw vegetables cut into pieces—artichokes, tomatoes, celery, chives, raw asparagus, carrots, peppers, radishes, and Belgian endive—are dipped directly into this mixture at the table. A similar dish exists in the gastronomic tradition of Rome and Lazio, where it bears the name
cazzimperio
.

This type of cuisine is the exact opposite of neighboring Emilia Romagna's. While their neighbors prefer complex preparations, Tuscans prefer to eat products raw or barely cooked over the flame. No greasing or stuffing, no sauces or spices, just a pinch of black pepper from time to time. Often not even salt is added to the food. Tuscan bread does not contain salt; the
fiorentina
is flavored exclusively with olive oil. When the exiled Dante mourned from Ravenna: “You are to know the bitter taste / of others' bread, how salt it is, and know / how hard a path it is for one who goes / descending and ascending others' stairs,”
⁹
he was not alluding to the salt of poetic, nostalgic tears, but to common cooking salt. The meaning, in fact, is that at home Dante was used to eating insipid Florentine bread, while in Romagna, as we recall, there are great salt marshes; the bread of Ravenna would seem too salty to any Tuscan, not just to a very embittered poet. It is not surprising that Tuscan bread has no taste: but in recompense, it sets off marvelously the decisive tastiness of Tuscany's exquisite salamis, goat cheese, and prosciuttos.

Bread in Tuscany has always been the foundation of the meal and a state concern, as it was in Rome in ancient times. It was supplied to the city's population in a government-sponsored process. In the villages of Tuscany, not to mention the cities, the preparation of bread has always been assigned to specialists of the trade, not to ordinary housewives.

The Tuscan eats bread for breakfast, dunking it into his
caffellatte
(milk and coffee), and before lunch he satisfies his early hunger with a bruschetta, a piece of warm, toasted, crusty bread, drizzled with olive oil and spread with something tasty: tomatoes, liver, olive paste, diced chicken gizzards, entrails. If there is only aromatic oil and nothing else on the bruschetta, or on the bread, it is called not bruschetta, but
panunto
or
fettunta
(oiled bread or slice).

In Pistoia they make
necci
, focaccias of chestnut flour, and also
brigidini
and
berlingozzi
, biscuits that are crispy on the outside and soft inside. Even the typical Sienese cake is called bread:
panforte
(literally, “strong bread”), round, spicy, and full of raisins, honey, almonds, pumpkin, and candied citrus fruits. The recipe for
panforte
is attributed
to a certain Ubaldino, whom Dante placed in the sixth circle of Purgatory: “I saw their teeth were biting emptiness / both Ubaldin da la Pila and Boniface.”
¹⁰
This Ubaldino degli Ubaldini da Pila was the brother of Cardinal Ottaviano degli Ubaldini da Pila, who is also remembered in
The Divine Comedy
. According to the legend, his brother the cardinal transmitted to Ubaldino the recipe for the cake, which he had received from a nun called Berta at the convent of Montecelso: the nun, ashamed of her gluttonous confection (almonds, nuts, candied fruits, spices!), had renounced the treat she had created. The cardinal's brother Ubaldino, being a layman and not a monk, had no reason to feel ashamed. Thus in the eyes of history he became the creator of the
panforte
, that incredible Italian confectionery specialty.

In the beginning,
panforte
was a typically Sienese creation; later it became a national product. It is mentioned in Venetian chronicles as early as 1370 as a confection imported for the Venetian Carnival. Both
panforte
and other Tuscan sweets, such as
cantucci
, the biscuits from Prato, and
ghiottini
, should be dunked in the dessert wine
vin santo
(holy wine).

Bread is an essential ingredient of
cacciucco
, Livornese fish soup. Grated bread is sprinkled over macaroni, bean dishes, and cabbage. At the end of the meal, shavings of goat cheese, dried figs, walnuts, and grapes are arranged on a slice of bread. An afternoon snack is prepared with bread, butter, and sugar and a few drops of aged sweet wine.

Tuscany wisely maintains the image of rustic simplicity that it has earned for itself. Even in the most elegant restaurants, soup is served in ceramic bowls. Customarily brought to the table in ceramic bowls is
ribollita
: originally this was a soup made of meat from the day before,
“ribollita”
(reboiled) for the following day with fresh vegetables added.
Pappa al pomodoro
, a bread and tomato soup, is also served in earthenware bowls.

The chief pride of Tuscan cuisine is famous throughout the world: the enormous
bistecca alla fiorentina
(steak Florentine). It is obtained exclusively from the loin of the Chianina breed of cattle (from the Chianti Valley), and each portion weighs no less than 450 grams. The slice of meat is cooked directly over the coals with no spices and no salt.

In the book
Vita di Nicolò Machiavelli
by the quintessentially Tuscan Giuseppe Prezzolini, a true hymn to the triumphant Tuscan spirit, the
fiorentina
is elevated to the role of symbol and gastronomic emblem of the region:

 

With a dash of catmint, a pinch of sage, and a whiff of rosemary . . .

In the first years of the sixteenth century the Florentine table, emancipated from
the Mastodonic and unenlightened medieval pabula, made for the belly and not for the palate, had attained to some of its immortal masterpieces, which we have since been able to repeat but not to improve upon. May I present then my compatriot, this grilled tenderloin, the pride of a calf's collop, still clinging, as you see, to the bone from which he was bred; observe his healthy complexion, which, saving his youth, might seem, I admit, apoplectic, like a slab of red marble, veined with white stains; on either side fired to meet you and spruced up with a drip-drip of oil and a dash of pepper, salt, and parsley; no blame to you, beef, though you do blush, yet blush not but outface the raw jowl of roast beef, Albion's bloody darling, and the crusty scowl of Milanese cutlets; for, believe me, you have nothing to fear by comparison.
¹¹