Yesterday's challenge - Tuscany

"Cucina povera"

Yesterday was David's special meal day and he set me the challenge of 'Tuscan'. Spinach thought I - and I was partially right, but not really. I thought that any dish with the word Fiorentina in it, meant spinach. And indeed it sort of does - spinach and cream as well most often, but:

"It's rather misleading, but so often you see these recipes mistakenly described as Italian, when in fact, they are French dishes simply named after someone Italian—one Florentine in particular." Food52

The Florentine in question is Caterina de Medici who married a French king, brought her own cook, and is said to have changed the face of French cooking. (I gather this theory is in dispute.) But she did love spinach which grew around her home town of Florence and so there are endless French dishes à la Florentine, which have spinach - like Eggs Florentine. Ditto for those cookies called Florentines. They're of French origin.

The Florentines, however, and the Tuscans in general are really basic eaters. It's not fancy food at all. Other Italians call them bean eaters - and I did have some feeling that they were into beans. (I was 100% right there.) Delia Smith has a couple of bean soup recipes that qualify as Tuscan inspired and I have made the bean soup before. It's better than it looks. Their bread is a really basic white bread - made without salt that apparently goes stale quite quickly which leads to its use in soups and salads. So forget about your Tuscan bread being the height of desirability. I must say that when in Italy I have never been impressed by their bread - it can look quite tempting and crusty but it's actually very dry and tastes stale even when its fresh. Here though - put Tuscan on the name of the bread you are selling and it immediately becomes super desirable - and expensive. The same goes for anything with the name Tuscan or Florentine.

But the most famous of the Florentine dishes - Bistecca alla Fiorentina - is basically just a massive barbecued T-bone. Admittedly from a particular kind of cattle - Chiamina - large white animals, but no spinach to be seen. Indeed it's very plain and simple and depends on high quality steak.

So my husband wasn't going to get that - boring - and besides we don't have the right cattle here so it wouldn't be authentic. And he often complains about how boring the Italian main courses are because they are so frequently so plain.

It is interesting though, isn't it, because when you think of Tuscany you inevitably think beautiful countryside, the Medici, the Renaissance, the best olive oil. All extravagant, lush, beautiful things. That last - the olive oil - may in fact be true - as are all the others of course, but the sumptuousness of all that has nothing to do with Tuscan food.

I didn't really like Florence on my one very brief visit - admittedly on a rainy day. I am used to lots of tourists when on holiday, but on the whole we have found that in the big tourist cities you can wander away from the major sites where the tourists cluster in their hordes - here is part of the mile long queue for the Uffizi for example.

In other towns when you wander away from the main sites you find beautiful little back streets, secret little squares, interesting little shops. For me, the back streets of Florence were not attractive at all, indeed they were almost threatening. Now maybe we wandered down the wrong streets. Still I wasn't impressed.

Mind you we did wander into another smaller art gallery where my favourite statue of all time is on display - Donatello's David. There was nobody there! There were several Michelangelo statues downstairs too. You could touch them! And look how unprotected it is. The guard in the room allowed us to take photos too. This is not the best photo I know but it shows how empty the gallery was.

And not only is it the crowds. On the one hand you have the over the top opulence of the Duomo - beautiful in the detail, but when seen en masse really a bit too much:

And on the other you have those dingy back streets.

Lucca, Siena and Pisa on the other hand are lovely. We stayed in a house on a hill, near the coast with an amazing view:

Which did rather prove that Tuscany is undeniably beautiful.

But, as usual I digress. Well partly because what I am trying to say here is that the contrast between the fabulous and fabled wealth and beauty of Tuscany is really in complete contrast to the plainness of their food. Which is not to put it down because, as with all peasant food, there are gems.

I visited several sites which told me about the top 5, top 10, top 50 Tuscan dishes. And you can probably do no better than going to the Tuscany Tourist site which also has recipes for them all. It actually wasn't all that difficult to decide on my meal because pretty quickly you realise what the most common dishes are and some of them are very easily eliminated. Crostini - with chicken livers. Not very filling and we don't like chicken livers. Pappardelle al lepre - pasta with a hare sauce. No hares here and rabbits are also tricky to obtain. Ribollita - kale and bean soup - don't think David is keen on kale - and yes you can use other cabbage, but I don't think he's all that keen on beans either and none of the recipes suggested using a can. Of course I could have but I did want to be authentic and I think the haricot beans that I have would have needed soaking for a some time before using. Panzanella - a bread and tomato salad. Too cold for salad. I was very tempted by a peppery beef stew called Peposo - so tempted in fact that I might well try it some time soon - though I'm a bit unsure about David and pepper. There are other offal dishes - not a goer with David and so, in the end, I settled on Pappa al pomodoro - tomato and bread soup. It was a toss up between that and another soup of pasta and tomatoes. Of all the recipes I found for my chosen dish I picked Jamie Oliver's because it enabled me to use some of the too many cherry tomatoes that I had in the fridge. And the small leftover bit of Pane di Casa (which David doesn't really like) would also be perfect. Here are two pictures - Jamie's on the left and Yotam Ottolenghi's on the right:

As you can see they look pretty similar and I have to say that, for once, the finished item also looked pretty similar. It was very delicious and surprisingly rich for the very few ingredients in it. No wine, no stock, no onions. I made half quantities which was also just right. Do try it some time.

And finally I tried for something else Tuscan - Schiacciata all'uvia which is a kind of focaccia but with grapes and fennel seeds on top, plus a little bit of sugar. Perfect to go with the cheese I thought. And it was really. A very different, unusual taste. Not popular with my husband though - he doesn't like sweet things with cheese - even though all the gourmets recommend it. I used Yotam Ottolenghi's recipe (no picture), so I give you a picture gleaned elsewhere. Some of the other recipes I found used rosemary rather than fennel. I confess that mind didn't rise quite as much - but enough for me not to feel I had totally failed.