The Tuscany enchants every time you visit it, regardless of the season. A landscape jewel that the whole world envies us, a treasure chest of art and human passions, cities filled with castles, towers, capitals, and timeless churches. The Middle Ages and the Renaissance have shaped its contemporary history.
When thinking of Florence, one imagines still finding Michelangelo or Leonardo walking through the streets and squares draped in their red velvet cloaks.
In Siena, everything tells a story set among districts competing for the Palio and ancient inns where schemes were concocted against opponents. Not that such things do not happen today, but fortunately, they are in a more jovial and less serious perspective than in the past.
In Arezzo, between Camaldoli, Poppi, and La Verna, you still feel wrapped in a landscape strength of nature that has not lost its wild and original soul. Ancient oak forests envelop monasteries and stories of Franciscan stone that welcome thousands and thousands of pilgrims from all over the world even today. A flow of souls that has not ceased for about a thousand years.
The Tuscan autumn is a shifting of colors, green gold, the coppery hues of Chianti vineyards and the oaks in the Casentino Forests. In such ancestral places, cooking is a fascinating world that determines the vibrancy of the days.
The essence of Tuscan cuisine is maintaining an umbilical bond with history and tradition, a strong tie that has not undergone changes but has, in fact, influenced international kitchens as well. Tuscany in autumn enjoys the delicious harvests of legumes and cereals from summer. The earthenware pots return to warm ribollite, soups, and tomato mushes. Black Cabbage, chickpeas, onions, and porcini mushrooms keep company during the first cool and humid evenings, with the first mists enveloping the Sienese hills or the Maremma highlands like cotton flakes.
Homemade bread crusts are placed on burning embers to toast until they reach perfect crispness and become bases for sauces of Cinta Senese, black cabbages, and the indispensable Tuscan spread, made from grinding the fifth quarters of the pig or cow with the addition of Tuscan spices and herbs such as laurel, rosemary, and thyme, along with anchovies in paste. A very simple gastronomic pleasure that has its roots in times when roads were still unpaved and the evening silence was not disturbed by the rumbles of modernity.
The Tuscan fireplace is another emblem of a culture that has always dedicated great attention to feasting, sharing, and companionship. The Tuscan cotto was the most evident form of warmth that still today remains a symbol of refinement and a shared passion for home, cooking, its aromas, and its intriguing rustic beauty. A platter of Tuscan cold cuts on a wooden table is a cinematic must that remains a part of our daily life. A slice of Finocchiona in front of a good glass of Sangiovese wine is not a stereotype but a timeless lifestyle. The Tuscan Acquacotta bubbling in the pot hung over the fireplace may still be evident in some castle homes, but rest assured that Tuscan families do not give up this simple delicacy that has shaped the course of time.
Strolling through an ancient village of stone and Tuscan terracotta, in autumn, as evening falls, means appreciating scents and aromas spilling from windows and intoxicating the alleys and squares. And these are ancient scents, an indelible memory of a history that will hardly make way for hamburgers and fries. An innate resistance lies in the very essence of Tuscans, shaped by history and beauty.
Bernardo Pasquali
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