Panzano-in-Chianti

Panzano, Italy, is at first glance another typical Chianti town (a region of Tuscany). You know what I mean:  the vineyard-studded rolling hills, the blue skies, the many stores that sell the local vino (wine), the cute piazze (squares) in the center of each town where locals sit and chiacchierata (chat and gossip). Chianti is just so cute and particular.

Panzano has at least one item, though, that sets it apart from the other Chianti towns.  Walk up to a building painted outside with red-and-white horizontal stripes and a couple of cow statues on the street, and that is where "typical" ends.  Enter Antica Macelleria Cecchini to the music of AC/DC blasting full volume on the stereo and be welcomed by a man who balances a teetering stack of 10 or 12 glasses in his left hand and a giant jug of Chianti wine in his right.  His pants share similar red-and-white stripes as are painted outside the store, only on him the stripes are vertical.  He smiles broadly with a bit of an impish look on his face.  It feels like a Fellini movie set.  He doesn't say a word, but as he leans in close, he expects you to remove the top glass for him to fill with the local red wine. You can't help but wonder what this man has been smoking. Do not be alarmed:  This fellow obviously loves his work.  He is completely absorbed.  Say hello to Dario.

Dario pinching some "ciccia" (meat, fat, flesh)

Dario Cecchini is a macellaio (butcher) but far from ordinary. Famous throughout Tuscany and beyond, and even in America, especially California since he married a woman from Berkeley a few years back. When you are in the store and welcomed with a glass of wine, there is also true Italian hospitality with salume (cured pork meats) and toasted bread with fresh olive oil and special spreads... Really, you could get away without ever going upstairs to sit down for lunch.  If you are even the least bit goloso (gluttonous, gourmand, tempted by food), all the aperitivi (appetizers) just whet your appetite.

Degustazione (sampling, tasting)

A butcher Dario is, but upstairs is Dario's restaurant. Italians and tourists flock to the place. I have been a handful of times over the years but only at lunchtime when he offers his MacDario menu, a choice of two meals for 10 and 20 euros. The quality of the food is excellent, healthful, and absolutely delicious.  He has his own catsups and mustards and aromatic sea salts, which he sells in the store and we enjoy with our meal as well.  For those of you who do not eat meat, Dario offers a vegetarian meal as well.  See the photo of my friend's vegetarian option, which she said was very tasty.

 Pinzimonio (raw veggies with olive oil and sea salt for dipping)

It may not look like anything special, but IT IS AMAZING!

MacDario Sushi

Vegetarian option (changes daily and is not on the menu)

If you visit Florence, getting to Panzano is one of the few places in the Chianti region easily accessible by public transportation.  By SITA bus, the trip takes barely an hour and drops you off 20 meters from the entrance to Dario's butcher shop.  Eating lunch at Dario DOC is a fun experience and a lovely day trip. And if you can get yourself up and out of your chair after the meal, you can even enjoy the quaint hill town of Panzano in Chianti before returning to Florence.

Good times, good friends

in the sun with a full belly at Dario DOC's

Buon appetito.

Fett'unta

What the heck is fett'unta? It's a greasy, garlicy, piece of toasted or grilled bread. It is the Italian version of garlic bread and tastes delicious.

Fett'unta = fetta (slice) + unta (from the verb ungere, meaning greasy or oily) = oily slice or greasy bread.  End of math lesson.

In Tuscany, the traditional Tuscan bread is saltless and rather boring for that lack.  This happened because during the 12th Century the Pope put a hefty tax on salt, which the Florentines couldn't afford to pay. Even today, in the 21st Century, they continue to make bread without salt.   Saltless bread does not detract from the flavors of the rest of your well-seasoned meal.

At this time of year, late autumn, fett'unta is served more often in restaurants in Tuscany than during the rest of the year.  After the back-breaking labor of picking olives and then within a few days going to il frantoio (the olive mill), everyone rushes home with their new oil to make fett'unta and swallow it with a glass of Chianti. New oil is made from the first harvest of the olives in the fall when the olives are not quite as ripe as they become after a few weeks more in the sun.  The quality of the oil is peppery with a punch, the color is green, and the health benefits are higher.

Because I am not crazy about the plain, old Tuscan bread, I visit one of several of my favorite panetterie or forni (bakers or bread stores) and choose from a variety of whole grain breads.

Then I slice bread from the widest part of the loaf (not too soft nor too fresh).  Toast it or, better yet, grill it on top of the stove.  Cover with new virgin olive oil, and rub the bread with fresh garlic. If you like, add a little sea salt and pepper.  That's fett'unta. Enjoy!

What you do from here is up to you. What I have been doing is adding to the recipe as the Tuscan's do. This makes for a very healthful, quick to prepare, and economical dinner loaded with protein, vitamins, minerals, fiber, and flavor.

You could, for example, cook cavolo nero (lachinato kale) or bietola (beet greens): Boil water in a pan. After rinsing the leaves, place in the boiling water for about 30 seconds. Drain.

Add on top of the fett'unta.

Add some beans of your choice. I am using a mix of ceci (garbanzo beans) and cannellini (Italian white beans). I buy dried, organic beans. After soaking a minimum of eight hours and changing the water frequently (to reduce the gassy problem), I cook the beans in water with a small amount of olive oil, garlic, and some sea salt until the beans are al dente and the water is just cooked out.

Add the beans on top of the kale. Top with more new olive oil, sea salt, and pepper.

And wouldn't you know? All this talking about fett'unta caused me to crave some now. What better occasion than a visit by a friend? He's Italian, from another part of Tuscany. He'd never heard of it before and never ate it. So, of course, I made fett'unta for lunch. I thought it was cute how about five times I had to tell him the name, fett'unta, and why it's called that.  So maybe it's even more regional than I thought. No matter, he liked it. So will you.

Buon appetito.

Carpaccio

Carpaccio is an Italian appetizer of raw meat or fish thinly sliced, sometimes pounded thin, and often served with rocket salad (arugula) and a vinaigrette of oil and vinegar.  There are two slightly varying stories as to the genesis of "carpaccio." Whether at Harry's Bar in Venice, Italy, or at Savini Restaurant in Milan, Italy, in 1950 two women were told to by their doctors to eat only raw meat.  Apparently, it wasn't socially acceptable for women to eat raw meat; so the code name "carpaccio" was created.

In one story, it was named by the owner of the restaurant because the colors of the raw meat reminded the owner of the colors used in the paintings of artist Vittore Carpaccio.  In the other story, there was a painting on the wall by the same artist, and the waiter had to quickly think of a code name to call the appetizer so the woman could order the dish and be discreet.  Personally, I think, as the story was passed on, the details of the story became muddled, and that's the reason for the two versions of an almost identical story.

Regardless, my very dear friend came to visit me this week from another country.  We went to dinner at a place I enjoy that serves typical Florentine dishes.  Having read the menu and having made a decision, my friend exclaimed, "Oh, I love carpaccio.  I'm having that."  I asked her if she completely read and understoood the description as to what kind of carpaccio she was about to order.  She decided to be bold and try it even though it wasn't what most of us are accustomed to receiving when we order this dish, especially in the United States.

The photo clearly depicts the look of disgust on my friend's face when her dish arrived.

Instead of a vinaigrette, the carpaccio was served with salsa verde (a sauce made mostly from olive oil, vinegar, Italian parsley, anchovies, and capers -- mmm, delicious!!!).  But it was the carpaccio that had us in stitches.  Carpaccio di Lingua.  That's right.  Tongue!  Six slices of it.  From six cows?  One tongue for each language my friend speaks fluently?  Couldn't they have disguised it even a bit?  Throw some arugula on top so we didn't have to look at all those tongues?

Meanwhile, Mabel, my dog, was quite satisfied with the tongue carpaccio.  And where we were sitting was right next to the fiaschetteria (Work with me here.  A fiaschetteria is a wine shop where you can fill your own bottles of wine straight from the vats.  I don't know what you call the actual vats).  So we were at a table next to the vat from which patrons were served liters of house wine.  At the bottom of the vat, they had a large bowl to catch the wine drippings.  Mabel kept eyeing that bowl as if already drunk, wanting to take a drink.

We belly-laughed our way through dinner, but when I received a phone call, we had to abruptly leave for a meeting before completing our dinner or even having caffe macchiato (espresso with a splash of milk).  We're pretty certain the people working in the restaurant, aware of our giggling and laughing, believe we left because we were disgusted with her meal.

Etymology of fiasco:  bottle;  fare fiasco:  to make a bottle;  in English: a complete failure; a sudden collapse)

Our dinner ended up being a fiasco.


-- Josslyn "Giosalina"
Florence, Italy

Il Frantoio ("The Olive Press")

A little more than a week ago, I told you about La Raccolta ("the harvest") of the olives. It doesn't stop there.

Following the harvest, within usually about three days, the olives go to the press. The olive mills operate round the clock this time of year; so it can be difficult to get an appointment to press your olives.

The process is fascinating.  The olives are dumped from the back of the truck onto a scale that's in the ground and weighed.  The leaves and small branches we didn't separate during the harvest are now separated through the machine and then washed. Next, they are crushed and ground, which forms a brown paste.  The paste is kneaded and heated at a low temperature (think extra virgin, cold pressed) to enable the release of the oils. The air in the mill is thick from the overwhelming aroma of pressed olives. Once the oil is extracted, it goes through a centrifuge, separating the oil and water. From one tube goes the pulp of the olive, the waste of the olive, which is called sansa. The look of the sansa is not appealing!  And out of a spout, pours the foamy olio nuovo ("new oil") in varying shades of green and gold, the fruit of our labor. It is customary to immediately eat bruschetta made with the fresh-pressed oil. (There are several other steps before the extraction that I don't know how to explain -- sorry! -- but this website does.)

I told you firsthand about the intensive manual labor involved. And now I will tell you that for all that hard work the yield is only about 10.5%. From our 118 trees, we yielded ~40 liters of fresh olive oil. Now you understand why your bottle of oil can be so costly.

I enjoy every drop of high quality, good-tasting olive oil more than ever before.

-- Josslyn 'Giosalina'
near Certaldo, Italy

La Raccolta ("The Harvest")

"

Ho trovato lavoro in Italia. ("I found work in Italy.")

It is olive season in Toscana, and one can find sagre delle olive ("olive festivals") in most towns and villages.  Tomorrow we will go to Lucca for one such festival.  Olives are one of the oldest fruits known to man, and nowadays the benefits of a diet including and cooking with unsaturated fats are well known.  The fruit and the oil are used worldwide.  I enjoy the fruit cured in various ways as well as the cold-pressed, extra virgin olive oil.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to participate in the olive harvest.  I joke about coming to Italy to be an immigrant laborer in the vineyards and olive groves.  Harvesting gave me a new appreciation for the process involved before the olive and its oil end up at the table of the end-user.

We took a bus in the morning through the Strada in Chianti to a hilltop town named Panzano.  With each turn in the road, I saw a watercolor waiting to be painted.  We were greeted by the beautiful woman that runs the small winery where we were to work.  Four of us and one five-month old baby made up our team. 

It is a small grove of l’ulivi ("olive trees"), only 118 trees.  We raked the olives off the branches onto the rete ("net") on the ground.  We would then pull out any twigs that came with the olives, and then into the cassetta ("box") the olives would go.  Moving our net to abbraccia ("hug") another cluster of trees, we would repeat the process again and again throughout the day.  The women were chiacchierando ("chitchatting, chattering") all day long while Mirko (the only man amongst us) was praying for silence, I’m sure.  We were treated to lunch at the infamous Antico Macelleria Cecchini where the atmosphere was unique and the food was Slow, healthful, simple, elegant, and delicious.

By the end of the day, I admit to being tired.  We filled seven cassette ("boxes") of olives weighing at least 50 pounds each.  It was not difficult work, only somewhat physical.  To work in the fields in the Chianti hills with gorgeous views in every direction, honestly, is work I felt guilty being paid to do.  A satisfying day in every way.

Next week we return to take the olives to the frantoio ("olive press") to be pressed into oil.

-- Josslyn 'Giosalina'
Panzano in Chianti, Tuscany, Italy