TUSCANY
A land of art and famous people, it has the most famous landscapes in the world, charming nature and the admirable genius of humanity. Tuscany is an excellent tourist destination and the ambassador of the agriturismo in Italy and throughout the world. Do note that Tuscany has six sites that have been declared as World Heritage Sites by UNESCO.
The itineraries available to tourists are highly varied: the art cities, the Maremma countryside, the Apuan Alps, Versilia, the natural parks and the islands. Definitely worth a mention, the traditional events in the region are unrivalled and they attract visitors from all over: just consider the Palio in Siena, the games of Saracino in Arezzo or the Carnival in Viareggio.
In Tuscany you can choose essentially between two types of sojourn: or travel the countryside enjoying the enchanting landscapes and nature that conserves the charm unchanged with the passage of years and the green that is so difficult to forget. Or you can choose a historical and cultural journey to visit the abundant city and artistic centres throughout the region. Florence is without rivals and Pistoia, has a pulpit by Giovanni Pisano located in the Sant'Andrea church that would be reason enough for a vacation here. Lucca has walls from the fifteen hundreds and Pisa has the world famous leaning tower as well as an enchanting Piazza del Duomo which is one of a kind, the medieval Siena with Piazza del Campo is known throughout the world.
Anyone can try to find a more congenial vacation, from the sea to the hot springs as well as the wine roads and hiking or horseback riding trails. With exclusive hotels offering more traditional hospitality as well as the opportunity to stay in privately owned country farm homes the countryside in Tuscany is known throughout the world for its small rural settlements that have today been turned into rural tourism farms.
DON’T MISS THE FESTIVAL
The luminary and historical regatta of St. Ranieri in Pisa
A common trait of festivals in northern Tuscany that are influenced by religious rites is the frequent use of luminaries and parades of lights that are lit for miles creating an incredible overall effect.
One of the most beautiful of these is the Luminaria di San Ranieri in Pisa. Here on June 17, 1171 the hermit Ranieri died. He had lived for a long time in the holy land and then he retired to a monastery in Pisa. Considered to be a Saint by all, his remains were placed in the cathedral, where they are still kept today. After that, the artist Antonio Veneziano frescoed the cemetery in Pisa with a series of paintings called “Stories of St. Ranieri,” further consolidating his worship.
THE FESTIVAL. On the eve of the festival a procession of the relics takes place with the lights of thousands of lanterns that are placed along the façades of the houses on the Arno reflecting in the water of the river.
The day after that the Regatta of St. Ranieri takes place: the four city districts are divided into two teams, the Mezzogiorno and the Tramontana, who challenge each other in canoes on the Arno river and attempt to win the palio, which is mounted atop a tall pole that is ten metres high located on a large boat anchored in the middle of the river. The last Sunday of the month, the final competition takes place: the two teams, composed of hundreds of citizens in medieval costumes, challenge each other at the middle of the bridge and attempt to push the opposing faction back by pushing a cart mounted on tracks. This is less violent than the more ancient traditions which involved true combat and fighting with clubs: in 1490 Lorenzo the Magnificent introduced this more peaceful variant because he was alarmed by the violence of the games.
THE WINES IN TUSCANY
The Tuscany region, both regarding agritourism and wine tourism, represents an important and vanguard reality. It must be mentioned how advanced this area is with respect to the rest of Italy with regard to these two sectors. Certainly all of this was favoured over the years by good management of the area, even if it is also true that this land has facilitated that fact thanks to its climate, nature, landscape and history.
Proposing a wine itinerary in Tuscany is difficult. Each small area offers its own wine and its is all great quality and processed with skill, and it is always served with the warm hospitality of the site. It is not an accident that Tuscany started the Wine Tourism Movement in 1993 with the first edition of Cantine Aperte, a spring festival involving hundreds of wine producers. In Tuscany when making a list of the wines, we will most certainly leave out a few, but you can in alphabetical order taste: Arbia, which is among the top Italian whites, Brunello da Montalcino , which even competes with the best French reds, Chianti Classico, produced in the province of Siena and Florence and possibly the best known Italian wine, with a long variety of Chianti types that are divided by the zones of production including Cortona, Pomino, a great wine for seafood, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, which is a noteworthy red with a full bodied class and still others including Pitigliano, Vernaccia, Elba bianco, Gello and on and on.
THE FLAVOURS OF TUSCANY
Tuscan cuisine is based on the quality of the primary ingredients, which are much less elaborate than those used in neighbouring Emilia Romagna. Both simplicity and refinement are used in the careful attention to cooking times and the use of herbs. With regard to meat dishes, this region is unanimously recognized for raising some of the most highly prized specialties including the chianina beef and the cinta senese pork, which had almost completely disappeared and was recently brought back through a great deal of dedication and effort.
APPETIZERS AND FIRST COURSES. One unique appetizer to begin our food tour of Tuscany are the crostini di milza. Veal spleen is mixed with chicken livers that have been sautéed in finely chopped celery, carrot and onion, with the addition of white wine and tomato. The dish is then topped with capers and anchovies that have been ground and mixed with fresh butter to be spread on toasted bread. The simple hearty pappa al pomodoro soup is made from tomato sauce, garlic and basil poured over pieces of dry bread which are allowed to soften before being tossed with a fork to make a tasty mix. A more elegant dish with funghi porcini mushrooms is acquacotta casentinese: the mushrooms are browned and then covered with hot water to make a broth that is poured on toasted bread together with an egg beaten with parmesan to make a creamy sauce. The minestra di fagioli e farro is basically a bean and spelt soup with celery, savoy cabbage, carrots, onions, and tomato that is flavoured with prosciutto crudo ham and is simmered for forty minutes before adding the spelt. No list of Tuscan soups would be complete without remembering the famous ribollita, which is made from beans and cabbage with oil, bacon, ham bone, garlic, onion, celery, carrot and thyme cooked in a meat broth. The finished soup is poured over pieces of dry rustic bread and allowed to remain overnight before being ‘re-boiled,’ as the name means in Italian.
Pappardelle is one of many wonderful pasta options available in Tuscany. Some typical ways of serving it include topping it with wild hare or wild boar stew. This fettuccine style egg-based pasta is not very thin and it is around 3 centimetres wide, which makes it a perfect match for any sort of game meat. The wild hare stew is cooked with the entrails (lungs, heart and liver) and then poured atop the pappardelle, which have been cooked al dente. This presentation is topped with grated cheese. Wild boar sauce is quite a tradition in the Maremma region. It requires that the meat be marinated in red wine, vinegar, salt, garlic and rosemary. After marinating, the meat is cut into small pieces and laid in a pan with finely chopped onion, parsley and cubed bacon and covered in wine. It is all cooked together and when the meat begins to dry, tomato is added and the cooking is complete. The Pappardelle pasta, cooked al dente, is added to the sauce at the end along with and an abundant portion of pecorino cheese. This combination is all cooked together briefly to flavour the pasta. A specialty from upper Tuscany at the border with Liguria is testaroli made from a flour, water and salt dough. The dough is cooked in the oven to make it dense and then cut into a diamond shape and boiled for a moment. Traditionally these are topped with garlic and olive oil. Another simple and traditional pasta dish in Tuscany is made from flour and water, pici are ribbons that are half a centimetre thick and 1 centimetre wide that are hand curled to make a sort of spiral spaghetti shape. They are topped in a variety of ways with tomato sauce, sausage and meat sauce with garlic, oil and toasted breadcrumbs.
SECOND COURSES AND SIDE DISHES. The place of honour for second course specialties goes to the legendary bistecca alla fiorentina. This thick famous steak was threatened recently by mad cow disease. For wild game a regional favourite is Wild boar in dolce e forte, (sweet and strong) which is made strong by the wine and vinegar flavours and softened with the sweeter flavours of panforte cake and crumbled senesi cookies, chocolate, walnuts, pine nuts and raisins.
One of the seafood specialties worth mentioning is cacciucco alla livornese, which is made from fish divided into two groups: one group is left whole and the other group of smaller fish is ground to make the fish stock thick. The soup is flavoured with garlic, onion, carrot, celery, parsley and tomato, which are poured on slices of toasted black bread that has been rubbed with garlic.
Beans are another traditional Tuscan specialty and you can choose your fagioli either al fiasco or all’uccelletto. Beans al fiasco are cooked in a flask, which has had the wicker base removed. The beans are seasoned with oil, salt, sage and pepper; all’uccelletto means that after having been boiled, the beans are sautéed with oil, garlic, sage and tomato chunks.
THE DESSERTS . When reviewing the dessert list, the ancient castagnaccio tradition comes to mind. This flat cake is made from chestnut flour which is added to a dough made from flour, water, leavening, egg and olive oil, with lots of zibibbo wine. Another product that has become quite popular thanks to semi-industrial production is the panforte and the ricciarelli from Siena, which are made from an assortment of dried fruits and almond pieces ground into flour and held together with whipped egg white (not too stiff), which are placed between rhomboid shaped communion wafers and dried in the oven at a very low temperature.
