{"id":12090,"date":"2022-06-16T12:57:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-16T10:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/?p=12090"},"modified":"2022-06-21T21:23:25","modified_gmt":"2022-06-21T19:23:25","slug":"tuscany-food-and-wine-tours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/tuscany-food-and-wine-tours\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuscany Food And Wine Tours with Judy Witts Francini – FCI 048"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Back in mid-March of 2020, when the pandemic hadn\u2019t quite reached the U.S. yet but was devastating Italy, I interviewed five friends<\/a> who were suffering through those early days of fear and panic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of those friends was Judy Witts Francini, who lives in Tuscany, midway between Florence and Siena. I guess I might describe her as an \u201cItalian Food Concierge,\u201d because she seems to be involved in every aspect of regional Italian cuisine; from shopping at the local markets, to cooking classes, to creating unique foodie experiences for curious travelers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(And the tourists are back now\u2026 BIG TIME!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as I\u2019ve mentioned before, \u201cTuscan food,\u201d perhaps more than any other regional Italian cuisine, gets bastardized the moment it leaves the confines of Italy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a legend that suggests it was the Tuscan-born Caterina de\u2019 Medici who taught the French how to cook\u2014although comparing the two cuisines these days, it seems that the Frenchies were slow on the uptake. Tuscan cooking is simple and contains very little of the elaborate sauces or complex seasonings found in the kitchens of Paris. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The food traditions in Tuscany have their roots in peasant cooking, or \u201cla cucina povera<\/em>.\u201d The poor folks learned to make the best out of the meager ingredients available to them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s why it\u2019s laughable that so many fancy, high-priced \u201cTuscan\u201d restaurants have sprung up in the U.S. and U.K., becoming the exact opposite of the real recipes cooked in traditional Tuscan kitchens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is apparent in the antipasti<\/em> where the most common thing is to offer a variety of crostini <\/em>(little pieces of toasted bread) topped with anything from chicken livers to wild mushrooms to olive tapenade to lardo (yes, that\u2019s exactly what it sounds like: lard, or pork fat).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bread is made<\/a> without salt (called pane sciocco<\/em> in local slang), because once upon a time, salt was heavily taxed and very expensive so they made their bread without it. As a homesick Dante wrote in Canto 17 of Paradiso<\/em>, \u201cThou shalt prove how salty is the flavor of other people\u2019s bread.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But bread eventually goes stale, so being ever frugal, the Tuscans use the day-old bread to make their famous soup, ribollita<\/em>, with black cabbage (cavolo nero<\/em>) and cannellini beans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or as Judy described in the podcast, a \u201cbread salad,\u201d called panzanella<\/a>, which under the right conditions takes on the consistency of cous-cous. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well enough from me. Listen to what the expert has to say about Tuscany Food And Wine:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n