TUSCAN COOKING
Typical Recipes:
HORS D'OEUVRE:
Chicken liver canapès
Canapès with spleen
Mock meat sauce:
This is meat souce without the meat;
this makes it not only more ecomical, but also easier to digest, and it just as good to
eat.
FIRST COURSES:
Minestra
di Pane (bread and vegetables soup) in the manner of "Granny Giulia":
This is a typical Tuscan dish coming from an
old peasant tradition. Almost all the ingredients are vegetables and come from the kitchen
garden near the farm house. The result is a simple and genuine pleasure which isn't
difficult to create. It is particularly good reheated the following day
(rebollita)......It must be served with a Tuscan red wine.
Lasagne
(in the manner of "Auntie Liliana"):
The lasagne in Tuscany is among the best in
the world! Every year we wait in anticipation for Christmas and Easter just because of
Auntie Liliana's Lasagne. Don't be surprised if you find yourself eating 3 helpings of
this delicious creation.
Pasta bean soup
Chicken pea soup
Leek soup
In the old times, this soup was
traditionally served on St. Lawrence’s day, August 10th. In fact, it appears in the
cathedral canons’ menu and the same holiday was called the day of leeks instead of by
the saint’s name.
Wide noodles with hare
sauce
Risotto with cuttlefish sauce
Springtime "spaghetti":
This dish seems to have disappeared from
Tuscany tables, or at least the florentine ones. It was usually served on certain spring
Sundays as symbol of the new season, full of promise.
SECOND COURSES:
Florentine- style
kebabs:
This is still a traditional winter
dish in Florence, even though in order to eat it prepared as it should be, that is on the
spit, most people must turn to their local rotisserie – where it is usually made
excellently. However, even if you do not have a heart complete with roasting spit, it is
possible to obtain truly pleasing results with your kitchen oven.
Pot roast
Florentine steak - Bistecca al la Fiorentina:
This is the pièce de rèsistance of
Florentine cuisine, the famous charbroiled steak that has made florentines’ mouths
water since the fourteenth century. (It seems that the chief town magistrates –
priori – themselves prepared it in the Palazzo Vecchio’s kitchen when they did
not have time to return home for lunch.) What counts most is the steak, the cut of which
Tuscan butchers have mastered better than any others.
Frogs à la Lorenzo the Magnificent
Rabbit
Lamb's fry
