Emiko Davies's Blog, page 8

A guide to eating through charming Bergamo

In October 2019 I found myself lucky enough to be in Bergamo, Lombardy, to judge the Guild of Fine Foods World Cheese Awards, which was an exciting and delicious opportunity — I tasted 50 cheeses tasted in one morning! It was a busy time and surrounded by almost 4,000 cheeses in the industrial outskirts of the city near the airport, I must admit that I had no idea how utterly charming and beautiful Bergamo was until after the awards when I took some time to explore the herringbone streets of the historical town with Sabrina, a native Bergamo chef and an old colleague of Marco’s from the Four Seasons. Thank goodness she was there to take us around her town and introduce us to some of the gastronomic delights as I probably would have missed some of these!

I want to share them here because not only do I think this is a town that should be on your must visit list, if you love food, love traveling to lesser known places and adore Italy, but also because they will need people to visit more than ever. Lombardy in northern Italy has been the epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic in Italy, and all of Europe. And Bergamo, a town of 110,000 people lying about 40km northeast of Milan, has been especially hard hit. On April 6, there were over 9,000 cases and 2,245 deaths in Bergamo alone (some, according to Eco di Bergamo, think in reality is actually double this number taking into consideration the entire province). An average of 50 deaths per day, and on one particular day, 195. An utter tragedy. When this is all over, they will need you more than ever, and if you are looking for a lovely place for a “slow” visit, easy to get to yet un-touristy, authentic and delicious, this should be high on your list.

The very fact that stracciatella gelato – a favourite of mine, delicious fior di latte with chunks of shaved dark chocolate folded through it – was invented right here in Bergamo in 1961 at Pasticceria La Marianna should be enough to make it worth a trip! Below I’ve highlighted some other must tries too, including the little marzipan treats you can see in the top left of the photo underneath and casoncelli, meat-filled ravioli-like pasta typical of Bergamo.

What you should eat in Bergamo

Cheese & Salumi: Amongst the various salumi (local prosciutto and salame) and cheeses from Lombardy that you’ll find on offer in restaurants in Bergamo, cheese is a high point for me and you should look out for taleggio (a strong, washed rind, soft cow’s milk cheese), strachitunt (an ancient cheese from the Taleggio valley called the ancestor of gorgonzola and the descendant of taleggio, it’s made from the raw milk of Brown Alpine cows) and bitto (which comes from the Valtellina Valley and is made from a mixture of cow’s and goat’s milk and is only produced in summer when the cows feast on Alpine meadows. It ages well, sometimes for over 10 years).

Casoncelli Bergamaschi: this candy-shaped filled pasta is the town’s specialty (you can find a version in many parts of Lombardy). Bergamo’s version has a meat (pork or beef) filling and is usually served with pancetta, sage and butter sauce. Yes, wear your stretchy pants.

Polenta: A staple of the region, I particularly love la polenta taragna, which is a polenta of corn mixed with buckwheat, which gives it an earthier, nuttier flavour than regular corn polenta.

Sausage: The local specialty is called loanghìna in dialect, a long, thin sausage, simply rolled up and pinned with toothpicks before grilling to keep it’s shape — served with creamy polenta or in a panino.

Stracciatella gelato: Invented in 1961 at the central pastry shop, La Marianna, this is the creamiest stracciatella (made with fresh milk and cream and studded with dark Lindt chocolate) that you’ll ever have!

Polenta e osei: Literally ‘polenta and little birds’ in dialect, the reference is to a traditional (savoury) dish found in northern Italy of creamy polenta with roasted small birds such as quails and thrush birds, but in Bergamo these are sweet marzipan and polenta treats made to look like polenta complete with little chocolate black birds. You can find them in pastry shops around town, Marianna have them too.

Wine: On our drive back to Florence from Bergamo we made a pit stop on the western side of Lake Garda for some lake fish and a spritz (FYI read my friend Joanna Savill’s guide to Lake Garda for Gourmet Traveller, her husband is a Brescia local), and we popped in to biodynamic winery, Le Sincette, for a tasting and a few bottles to take home.

Where to eat in Bergamo:

For a traditional meal, I turned to Sabrina for suggestions and she gave me these: La Tana, Lalimentari, Mimi La Casa dei Sapori. They were completely booked out so I recommend booking in advance! We did, however, make it to Trattoria Parieti for homely cooking, warm, quirky atmosphere, smiley staff and a plate of delectable casoncelli alla bergamasca and hearty polenta taragna with brasato (braised beef), all very reasonable. We also stopped into Al Carro Ponte, a modern wine bar/bistrot for aperitivo (photo above), it’s not in the historical centre but it’s worth a visit for their extensive wine list, perhaps some champagne, enjoyed with oysters, mini burgers and tartare.

How you can help Bergamo:

Italy Segreta has created a Go Fund Me page to raise money for Bergamo’s hospital, which ends at the end of this week. You can contribute here!

Stale bread for cinnamon fritters and tortine di mozzarella

Cooking as a family has been keeping us grounded and inspired lately. We have been baking a lot, Marco has started a new sourdough project, while Mariu, our 7 year old, and I have been making some recipe videos.

These are two really easy recipes that you can make with stale bread — and I mean you can use completely rock hard bread. Tuscans never, ever throw out bread. It is revived and made into salads like panzanella, soups like pappa al pomodoro or ribollita, crostini and that stale bread is turned into many more meals. We often have stale bread lying around (especially now that we are making our own) and I set it aside, bit by bit, until I have about half a big loaf’s worth and then I make a cake with it – savoury or sweet.

This was one of those times we wanted both, Mariu liked the idea of making something sweet inspired by her favourite snack, cinnamon toast, I wanted to do something savoury to make good use of some mozzarella and caprino (fresh goats curd) I had. I don’t know if these kind of recipes already exist but basically we dreamed these up one day while in Lockdown and not having any flour at home and not wanting to make a trip to the supermarket. They were largely inspired by a stale bread cake that I love to make (see Giulia’s recipe for that here) and that I have made in a million variations, including savoury versions (a savoury bread cake is essentially very similar to a savoury bread and butter pudding or breakfast ‘cake’, strata). We didn’t have enough bread for a whole cake so I thought we could fry them like pancakes.

Notes: I started with about 350 grams of stale Tuscan bread, or half a big loaf of country style bread and poured 2 cups/500 ml of almost-boiled milk over it. If your bread is very stale and dry (as my Tuscan bread was) you may need to leave it to soak for a few hours, eventually in the fridge when the milk cools. If not, you should be fine with leaving it to soak for about 15 minutes, or until you can crumble the bread with your hands (and you may need to squeeze out excess liquid, see how you go). Extremely hard crusts may need to be discarded.

We split the bread into two bowls for the 2 different recipes below, so make note if you are only making one of these recipes you’ll only need 1 cup of milk and roughly 180 grams of stale bread (about 1/4 of a country style loaf). This is a fun one to do with kids, you can watch Mariu’s cinnamon sugar fritter video on my IGTV or here at Vimeo.

Frittelle di cannella // Cinnamon sugar fritters

This is a very forgiving, very delicious, you-can-do-it-by-eye type recipe. Along with the milk-soaked bread above, crumbled into a bowl, add 2 beaten eggs, about 30 grams of melted butter, 1/3 cup/70 grams sugar, a heaped teaspoon of cinnamon and mix until you have a sort of chunky batter. You can even use an immersion blender to do this very quickly. Add a tablespoon of butter to a cast iron or non stick pan and fry spoonful-sized blobs of the batter like pancakes. Flip and cook on the other side until browned and delightfully springy. Add butter as needed for greasing until they’re all fried. Once finished, dust in cinnamon sugar (combine 3 tablespoons of sugar with half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon) and serve warm. This makes approximately 12 fritters.

Tortine di mozzarella e caprino

I don’t know what to call these. Tortine di formaggio (little cakes of cheese)? Sformato di formaggio? Cheesy muffins (Marco said that sounded ridiculous)? They essentially taste like baked mozzarella in carrozza, mozzarella sandwiches, so I even considered calling them baked mozzarella in carrozza! Anyway, they are delicious warm or cold, and this small size is perfect for antipasto or aperitivo (we enjoyed the with some hand-cut prosciutto and a glass of wine) or a snack or part of lunch with some salad (the girls prefer raw vegetable sticks!).

Combine the rest of the crumbled milk-soaked bread with 1 egg, salt and pepper, 200 grams of cheese (I used 100 grams of goats curd and a 100 gram ball of mozzarella, chopped into 1cm cubes). Use any cheese you like or the equivalent bits and pieces, even other things — consider one or two of the following: chopped ham, peas, or sliced mushrooms that have been cooked down, roasted cherry tomatoes, herbs, finely chopped spring onions, even anchovies!

You can make fritters exactly like the cinnamon toast ones (they are cheesy and melty) or bake this in a small baking dish like a gratin, even in a round cake tin! I thought the girls would be more likely to eat this as a snack so I baked them in a muffin tin greased with butter. Dot some more butter over the top and sprinkle some dried breadcrumbs and grated parmesan over the top. Bake until golden brown, about 20 minutes. Wait 5 minutes to remove them carefully (they will be soft and cheesy while warm and will harden as they cool). Makes 8-10 tortine.

We enjoyed these tortine as aperitivo in the neighbour’s unused olive grove which has been providing us with so much relief and a breath of fresh air during the Covid-19 Lockdown, since we are not allowed to go to parks or playgrounds and even a simple walk is discouraged. It has been a refuge for us when our small apartment gets too small for the four of us and, it turns out, taking a glass of wine or a little picnic of cookies for the girls down there feels so special, particularly at this golden hour just before the sun goes down. These cute fifties-style cat eye sunglasses by Max Mara were a gift from VisionDirect.

 

Why baking a cake is the best therapy

There is something incredibly soothing about baking. If you love cooking and read this blog of mine, I’m sure that you probably feel the same. When times get tough, or you’re simply feeling down or uninspired or, maybe just because it’s raining or you can’t leave the house because you’re in a national lockdown, baking a cake (or perhaps bread) can be the perfect remedy. When Amelie came out and I watched it for the first time, that scene where broken-hearted Amelie runs home to bake a cake so resonated with me, I knew exactly how that felt and how baking smoothed those raw and especially blue emotions. And now, on almost our fourth week of lockdown in Italy, I am regularly turning to soothing, comforting cooking, if anything to pass the time doing something peaceful and calming, or to have the house perfumed with the beautiful, heartwarming smell of cake baking. A familiar, reassuring smell.

For me, it’s partly the ritual: cracking eggs, the motion of whisking by hand, watching the batter transform into a silky, smooth cream. Buttering and lining the pan and even the waiting for the cake to bake, with that buttery perfume filling the kitchen, reassuring me that soon there will cake. Then it’s partly the result too, obviously: there is nothing more comforting than sitting down to a slice of still-warm cake and a cup of hot, milky tea (when I need to slow down or relax, nothing does it like a cup of tea for me) — even better if you’re sharing it with someone (this part may not be possible for everyone in quarantine, self-isolation or lockdown right now. Thank goodness I have little Luna who enjoys cake as much as I do, the other two members of the family aren’t into cake. To avoid having to eat an entire cake on my own, I often split the cake in half and freeze one half for another time).

I wondered if there was something that science could explain about why baking is stress-relieving and comforting — indeed there are plenty of articles about the connection between baking and its therapeutic qualities. Maybe it is the eating of the cake (comfort eating) and the sharing of it with those you love (the company, compassion when you cook for others) or maybe it has more to do with the ritual (there is a kind of mindfulness to baking, the careful measuring, the stirring, the order of it all) or simply the certainty of cake when faced in a period of uncertainty that makes it feel good to bake.

I read an article where behaviour experts and psychologists describe that the seemingly inexplicable toilet roll hoarding accompanying the global pandemic panic was simply a way of taking control of something during a crisis, a situation where you otherwise have no control. Fascinating, though I think baking a cake is more constructive, personally.

Baking is creative, like other creative outlets from painting to music to dancing, and if you’re like me and often need to keep your hands busy creating something, these kind of outlets have a positive effect on our well being too.

I found a cake that really hit the spot particularly well for me: Danielle Alvarez’s brown butter buckwheat and apple cake, which she posted in her Instagram stories recently (and which will appear in her upcoming book, Always Add Lemon). I absolutely love Danielle’s food, her restaurant in Sydney, Fred’s, is one of the most inspiring — I would eat anything and everything she proposes.

What I especially love about Danielle’s cake is that it is flexible — I followed her recipe that she posted at the end of her stories but she used spelt flour instead of the buckwheat, and oat milk instead of regular milk, and she says if you don’t have either of these flours you can use regular all purpose flour. It also only calls for 1 egg — bonus if you’ve been having trouble finding eggs lately. I have written about a similar northern Italian torta di granosaraceno, a buckwheat and apple cake that is usually eaten with a lingonberry jam filling but the main differences are it calls for 6 eggs, white sugar rather than brown and a grated apple instead of chopped chunks of apple. Also, Danielle makes hers with brown butter, which is a game changer. Simply the smell of the butter browning and the perfume that will fill your kitchen as this is happening is worth it.

I made a little instagram video of baking Danielle’s brown butter apple cake and I included in it a slightly longer clip of how I line a springform cake tin — I admit, I am very lazy when it comes to lining cake tins and this is a good trick. Also if you’d like some further ideas for a comforting baking project this weekend (some are handy if you do not have flour or butter or all the basics), here are some favourites:

Torta caprese, my favourite flourless chocolate cake, all you need is dark chocolates, almonds, eggs and sugar (and you can adjust it to however many ingredients you have, the chocolate, sugar and almonds just need to be the same weight).

A classic Tuscan apple cake

Ada Boni’s chocolate cake, an incredible recipe from the famous 1920s Italian cookbook to have in your back pocket. There’s no egg or butter required, just flour, water and cocoa powder plus a liquid — you can use any liquid from milk, coconut milk, almond milk, I’ve also done it with coffee or even simply water. The perfect thing if you’re craving cake but lacking a few basic ingredients.

Walnut cake, it’s another Ada Boni recipe and all you need is walnuts, eggs and sugar.

Lemon polenta cake, this is the kind of baking that makes me really happy — sunny, lemony, easy, you can make these in a loaf tin, a round tin or a muffin tin for mini cakes. There’s no flour but if you have polenta lying around and some almonds. I make these with olive oil but if you don’t have it, you can substitute with melted butter.

Focaccia pugliese, if you’re more like my husband and savoury baking is your thing, I love this Bonci recipe for a fluffy, bouncy pugliese style focaccia with cherry tomatoes.

For some further reading, perhaps while you’re waiting for the cake to bake, there’s this personal essay I wrote for Food52 about Lockdown in Florence and why we are holding onto hope and there’s this article by Dorie Greenspan on the pleasure of baking.

Lockdown in Florence: Comforting chicken and farro soup & home deliveries

These are strange and surreal times and unless you’ve been hiding under a rock (not such a bad idea) you probably already know that the entire nation of Italy is under lockdown in an attempt to contain the coronavirus, Covid-19. Things change every day, with new regulations, new realities, new travel bans, new closures, every single day.

The current situation on the 13th of March is this: Florence is deserted as citizens are encouraged to stay home until April 3rd. No school. No gatherings of any sort, not even Sunday lunch with nonna or coffee with a friend. All non-essential shops have been closed, including restaurants, hairdressers, clubs, gyms and bars. Even parks will be locked and closed to the public. Open, though, are all food shops, supermarkets, newsagents, chemists, petrol stations, banks, post office. So there’s no need to stockpile. You can buy food, or a lightbulb, or, yes, toilet paper – there is plenty of that and no need to fight over it.

It may sound extreme but I have enormous respect for how the Italian government is handling this global pandemic, their decisions to just make everyone stop. And wait. And I’m amazed at how everyone is responding, encouraging each other to do it for the community, for their elders and the more fragile. This has been so heartening. There are even hashtags (of course there are hashtags), #iorestoacasa (I’m staying at home) and #andratuttobene (“everything will be ok”, where you’ll see a plethora of rainbow paintings by children). And don’t forget Nonna Rossetta, who is handing out the best advice for everyone on how to behave during the pandemic. I love her so much.

So really, we are absolutely fine — we have everything we need, no need to stockpile food as you can pop to the shops anytime, we can go for walks, or light the pizza oven for homemade pizza. I feel it’s rather like August in Florence when there’s the mass exodus to the seaside and Florentine shops and restaurants close for a good part of the month. The streets are empty, it’s too hot to go outside much and no friends are around — we are always the only ones, it seems, to be foolish enough to have to stay in Florence over the summer and have to be inventive to entertain each other! So we are well-practiced at this.

For us, personally, I feel these are days that we really needed. To learn how to slow down, and sit still for a moment. An overtired, overworked husband has been saying all he wants is some days off at home, to rest and spend time with his family (he got his birthday wish, yesterday). So for us, it’s the perfect opportunity to do all those things that get put off for being “too busy”: writing letters, pottering about at home, spring cleaning (perfect time for it), fixing old clothes, cooking projects (I made these bomboloni again and I highly suggest you try the soup below) and revisiting old books, or books I still haven’t opened! Catching up with old friends over the phone. While we aren’t encouraged to go in the car anywhere if we can help it (you have to carry a certificate with you anywhere you go to show to police who’ll stop you to ask where you’re going and if it’s absolutely necessary), we did take a beautiful walk through the woods just 15 minutes from our house and it may just have been one of the best things I’ve done all year so far.

I know we are extremely lucky, though. We live in a beautiful bubble, right on our hilltop neighbourhood of Settignano, where everyone knows each other (and it’s not the only time that this has been the preferred setting for avoiding a pandemic. Boccaccio set his fourteenth century Decameron here, which starts with a group of 10 friends telling stories to each other on a villa on the hill above Florence to pass the time away while the Plague ravages the country).

When we feel stuck, we have an entire olive grove next to the house the kids can run around in. Meanwhile, the news today is that in the centre of Florence, even parks are closing and being policed because it seems it’s too hard to keep bands of teenagers away from each other. We are also lucky because, as a family, we have been longing to be together, and to have Marco at home in the evenings these days is my daughter’s dream come true. But I know there are many others in situations where they are not going to find it easy to be together. Or where staying at home in lockdown is not a desirable, or even safe, option (the national anti-violence number is 1522). Or where it might just be downright lonely. Add to that stress (the stress of losing a job, or not knowing if you’ll have one to come back to), and some worry or anxiety — my heart goes out to the many people who will be suffering through this lockdown simply because of the situation it is enforcing upon them. I know I’m lucky.

Another thing that does break my heart is knowing how this is absolutely crushing Florence (like many cities in Italy that rely on tourism), I don’t know anyone not affected directly financially by this. It will be so hard for businesses to pick themselves up after this, many closed well before last night’s new decree shutting down non-essential shops, some are not sure when or how they will reopen. One thing I can say is that many have already faced this challenge by thinking outside the square and many businesses that have to remain closed are offering home delivery (which for now is allowed but I realise at the rate things are changing here, this could change too). This could be particularly useful for people who cannot leave the house for health reasons (for example if they are elderly, or are already sick — with or without coronavirus, if you have a fever you have to stay at home — and cannot buy basic groceries or cook).

I for one am hoping to support as many of my favourite places as I can during this difficult time and while I have been posting updates on stories, someone rightly suggested a round-up — I will keep this updated during this crazy lockdown period! 

Another way you can help is to donate to Italy’s Red Cross, directly through this paypal link.

Some Florentine businesses offering delivery during the Lockdown:

Trattoria Burde: They just posted a photo of a mountain of crumbed braciole about to be fried and cooked in tomato sauce. Home delivery: 055 317206

Todo Modo Libri: A bookshop that happens to have an excellent wine bar. While they are closed during the lockdown, they are offering home delivery of books and wine (is there any better combination?). Email libreria@todomodo.org or contact them via instagram @todomodolibri or phone 055.239.9110.

Caffe Desiderio: Our favourite local bistro here in Settignano are offering home delivery of their delicious meals (they suggest their chicken liver terrine and their fresh pasta such as cappellacci filled with ricotta and chicory – see instagram for their latest!). Place your order before 12pm, 055.697687

Le Volpi e L’Uva: Delivery from 11am to 6pm, phone 055.239.8132 (they were too busy to delivery to us today, good thing there’s another few week of lockdown!).

S.Forno: The best bakery in town is ready to deliver to your home fresh bread, schiacciata, milk, biscotti and cakes — servicing the areas between Porta San Frediano to Piazza Santa Felicita’, Piazza della Calza and Piazza Tasso. Email info@ilsantobevitore.com or call 055.239.8580 (I’m considering hiding in the janitor’s closet, Elaine Benes style).

C.bio: Fabio Picchi’s beautiful bottega is open for businesses, selling organic produce, his signature bread, deli goods and more but they will also deliver — even if all you need is a bottle of milk! 055.247.9271

I recommend checking any business’s social media directly to get the full/updated picture.

Also check this post by Girl in Florence on how to support Florence.

Right now remember the focus is on health, on staying at home to stop the spread of the virus, particularly to Italy’s large elderly population who are the ones at risk. Everyone, every business, is taking things one day at a time. We need patience. Italy will bounce back, and she will be waiting with open arms.

I’ll leave you with the recipe for my current favourite, comforting chicken soup and an excerpt of this really important, passionate message from an infectious disease specialist in Toronto, you can (and should) read the full post here.

“I am not scared of Covid-19. I am concerned about the implications of a novel infectious agent that has spread the world over and continues to find new footholds in different soil. I am rightly concerned for the welfare of those who are elderly, in frail health or disenfranchised who stand to suffer mostly, and disproportionately, at the hands of this new scourge. But I am not scared of Covid-19.

“What I am scared about is the loss of reason and wave of fear that has induced the masses of society into a spellbinding spiral of panic, stockpiling obscene quantities of anything that could fill a bomb shelter adequately in a post-apocalyptic world.

“But mostly, I’m scared about what message we are telling our kids when faced with a threat. Instead of reason, rationality, openmindedness and altruism, we are telling them to panic, be fearful, suspicious, reactionary and self-interested.

“Covid-19 is nowhere near over. It will be coming to a city, a hospital, a friend, even a family member near you at some point. Expect it. Stop waiting to be surprised further. The fact is the virus itself will not likely do much harm when it arrives. But our own behaviors and “fight for yourself above all else” attitude could prove disastrous.

“I implore you all. Temper fear with reason, panic with patience and uncertainty with education. We have an opportunity to learn a great deal about health hygiene and limiting the spread of innumerable transmissible diseases in our society. Let’s meet this challenge together in the best spirit of compassion for others, patience, and above all, an unfailing effort to seek truth, facts and knowledge as opposed to conjecture, speculation and catastrophizing.

“Facts not fear. Clean hands. Open hearts. Our children will thank us for it.”

— Dr Abdu Sharkawy

Chicken, fennel and farro soup 

Here’s that soup I mentioned a while ago – it’s comforting, nourishing, delicate and that hint of lemon makes it even refreshing. To make now and perhaps freeze for later. It doesn’t take much effort, you just have to stick around so it’s perfect for when you’re pottering about the house, and then it really just does all the work on its own. I used two marylands which are the thigh and drumstick that I cut out of a whole chicken, they cook in the soup creating their own stock — you only really need the meat from one maryland for the soup itself, the rest I shredded and will use in some chicken sandwiches tomorrow. You can also leave out the chicken for a meat-free version and substitute with chickpeas, cannellini or other beans (if using tinned, add them right at the end with the greens).

1 leek or small onion, finely sliced
1 clove of garlic, whole but squashed
1/2 fennel bulb (or 1 whole if small), thinly sliced
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
60ml (1/4 cup) white wine (or water)
1-2 fresh or dried bay leaves
1-2 chicken marylands, whole
Water
Handful of chopped green vegetables, optional (this is lovely with just fennel but if you want to up the greens, do; I added 1 small young zucchini and a few leaves of chard)
Handful of parsley or other fresh herbs such as thyme or oregano, chopped
Juice of 1 lemon
Handful of farro (or rice or barley)
Salt and pepper to taste

Place the leek, garlic, fennel and olive oil in a heavy bottomed pot. Add a good pinch of salt. Over medium heat, cook stirring occasionally until the leek is limp and the garlic is fragrant, about 10-15 minutes. It’s important not to let anything brown, but if you spy some browning happening earlier, add a splash of wine or water to the pot and let it simmer away for 5 minutes. Add the bay leaves and marylands, then pour in enough water to cover them. Cover with a lid and let simmer on the lowest heat until the meat begins to pull away from the bone, about 1 hour. About halfway through, add the farro to the pot.

Remove the marylands and let them cool slightly on a chopping board before pulling off the meat and shredding it. While you’re doing that, throw in the greens and let them cook for about 10 minutes. Adjust your seasoning – I quite like a lot of pepper in this – and finish with the juice from a lemon and fresh herbs.

Photo essay: Chestnut polenta in the Tuscan mountains

One late October, my friend Simona, who runs a beautiful B&B called Canto del Maggio, brought us to her special place, a little wooden ‘rifugio‘, as they’re known in Italian, a mountain cabin offering a place of rest and nourishment for hikers. This particular rifugio, called Osteria la Rocca, clings to the tiny stone hamlet of Rocca Ricciarda, high up in the chestnut woods of Pratomagno, between Florence and Arezzo. The cosy, little trattoria with its fireplace serves the Tuscan typical fare from this area and is open only on Sundays.

We walk in to find 92 year old Mario hunched over the fireplace, steadily and patiently shaking and turning chestnuts in a perforated cast iron pan. He let us into the kitchen to show us how he makes chestnut polenta — this is the real reason why Simona has brought me here, to show me this incredible, dying tradition — by vigorously stirring chestnut flour (which is nothing more than dehydrated chestnuts that have been ground into a very fine, aromatic flour) and boiling water in an ancient copper pot with a wooden pole (an awkward, muscle building exercise that no one does anymore because it is so strenuous), before being turned out onto a perfectly white linen cloth.

It looks like a dark, round loaf of bread but it is incredibly light and pillowy. Mario cuts slices of the still warm, steaming polenta with sewing thread (can you spot it?) and serves the warm slices with fresh ricotta. I’m in heaven. There is also gnocchi — Pratomagno potatoes are held in high esteem and are recognised as a Slow Food presidium, these red-skinned, oval potatoes are grown in altitudes over 500 meters, some say they were derived from King Edward potatoes — and schiacciata all’uva and divine, ricotta-stuffed, fried chestnut flour fritters. Mario goes back to roasting chestnuts on the fireplace, patiently turning and tossing them throughout lunch, and recounting to us how, growing up, they were all he had to relieve his hunger, chestnuts and potatoes.

How to create your Italian family tree

I have spent many, many years tracing my husband Marco’s family tree, a project that started well over a decade ago when I was woking as a restorer, first as an intern and then in the archives of a photography museum in Florence and it struck me on a really personal level how many thousands of photographs (many family portraits) of unknown faces were in the collection. I immediately made my mother in law pull out her black and white family photos and tell me who everyone was – she is the only one these days that knows – and I set about putting a name to the faces and writing everything down. My grandmother in Australia constructed a very impressive family tree in the 1980s (completed with visits to graveyards and travels through the UK) but no one in Marco’s family had ever done a complete one. I knew I would be the one to fill in the blanks.

On our first trip to Puglia in 2011, the archives were not yet digitalised and looking for Marco’s grandfather Mario’s birth certificate meant walking in to the dingy office of the State Archives and asking for it in person. Enormous albums with their spines held together with swathes of silver duct tape (seriously! See the photo below right) were taken off shelves and as the pages were flicked through, I noticed large – like frying pan sized – sections missing. There had been fires and it’s not guaranteed that they will find the records, I was told. And I can imagine how many other natural disasters and wars had affected these delicate records throughout Italy. But we did find them and that was the start of our family history research, which eventually led to the birth of my latest cookbook, inspired by the stories I found.

Luckily, for anyone else interested in tracing their family history in Italy, many archives have now been completely digitalised and placed online for free. An excellent place to start is the website of “Antenati” archives of the Ministero dei Beni Culturali. Here, the registries of over sixty State Archives have been uploaded and with just a surname or some rough dates and the name of the town or municipality that you’re interested in, you can find the scans of original, historical birth, death and marriage certificates.

Even if you don’t have Italian language skills, it’s pretty easy to start your search as the main part of the website has been translated into English. Reading handwriting from the nineteenth century is another thing! And on the original certificates you’ll need some basic Italian to know what you’re looking at and deciphering the information but I hope that the tips below will help you know how to get the most out of using this website for your family history research.

Once on the home page, you will find you have an online search with the option of Sfoglia i registri (browse the archives) or Trova i nomi (find the names). I find the latter by far the most useful for starting family tree research.

Here you will find the registries from the following provinces (this includes the towns and cities that make up the municipalities under that province – for example the towns of Martina Franca and Grottaglie but also Taranto itself are in the wider province of Taranto): Agrigento, Asti, Bari, Benevento, Bergamo, Brescia, Caltanissetta, Campobasso, Chieti, Cremona, Enna, Forlì-Cesena, Genova, Grosseto, Imperia, L’Aquila, Mantova, Modena, Mondovì (Cuneo), Napoli, Padova, Pesaro, Pescara, Potenza, Prato, Ragusa, Reggio Calabria, Rieti, Roma, Salerno, Savona, Taranto, Torino, Trapani, Udine, Urbino, Vicenza, Viterbo

How far back can you go?

There are limits to the dates of the registers that you will be able to find. First of all, take into account that Italy was only unified as a country in the 1860s and therefore the archives themselves were only created in or around 1866. Prior to this date, births, deaths and marriages (and baptisms) were usually recorded in the local family parish, in registri parrocchiali. From around the mid-sixteenth century onwards this was the case. In order to have access to pre-1866 records, you will have to visit the family’s parish – if you’re not sure of which one that may be, on later records you will find that the addresses are written on every birth, death or marriage certificate so you may be lucky enough to find out the area the family lived in and hope they did not move around too much. Saying all of this, some provinces kept their records differently (they were like different countries after all) and in some cases you’ll find some certificates that date to the early 1800s so just try and see how you go!

I personally found the Antenati database most useful for searching within the dates 1866 and 1900 – but admittedly, between birth and death certificates you can find a lot of information (names, ages, professions, addresses, spouses, parents names) just within these years – I was able to go back as far as the mid-1700s in terms of family member’s birth years (thanks to a death certificate and a bit of simple subtraction!). For my family tree purposes, I know that the Cardellicchio family moved away from Taranto after the First World War. They moved to Turin for work, and while Turin is one of the provinces that have their archives digitalised, I discovered that many results that are around or less than 100 years old are no longer are considered ‘historical’ and you need to request access to these certificates from the archives in the city in question.

How to start searching:

Once you are in Find the Names section all you need to start is one or more of the following (depending on what you know and how much or how little you would like to find out):

name – first or last or both


year – start and finish of the search (for example if you know the year of the birth, you can put in just that year, if you’re looking for a parent and can guess the years in which to search based on age assumption, put those years in)


type of certificate you’re looking for (birth/death/marriage)


municipality – if you know the town or province of the family (and if it is one of the ones mentioned above)

If you don’t even know the exact province where your family came from, what is very interesting to know is that Italian surnames are highly regional (Tuscany surnames for example are easy to spot as they end in an ‘i’). If I type in my mother in law’s surname, Cardellicchio, and put just the dates, but no place, all of the 300 results that come up are from Puglia and almost all happen to be from Taranto – this is definitely a surname that comes from this one town! Very helpful (and absolutely fascinating) is a map of Italian surnames where you can put in the surname and find out where they are currently most concentrated. This is a great starting point if you do not even know the possible locations of the family. I like using this one. While this map gives more precise results by town.

Once you put something in to search, you will get results with some basic typed information (as in the image below) that includes in the first column the name, age, and names of the person and their mother and father (note that in Italy, women keep their maiden names), along with (in the second column) the type of certificate, the date of the certificate and the municipality/city/town in the province. In the third column, if available, is the name of the spouse. What is very handy is that this search will also give you results if one of the parents or the spouse has the name you are searching.

When you find an entry you want to look at, you can click to open the scanned certificate. Double click to enlarge the image and now prepare yourself for squinting, enlarging and deciphering the elegant handwriting! You’ll notice more than one entry on each page so make sure to check you’re looking at the right one.

In a death certificate:

The certificate (atto di morte in Italian) will name the witnesses present (often their age and residency too), the date and hour, the address of where the person lived and, interestingly, his or her job and spouse (you can tell if someone is widowed – and therefore learn some more information about the spouse if you don’t already know their dates – by the description “vedovo” for a man or “vedova” for a woman).

You’ll notice there are two death certificates in the search results above that are related — Francesco Cardellicchio (1890) and Angelo Cardellicchio, his son (1877). In Francesco’s certificate, we learn that Francesco Cardellicchio died at age 71 in 1890, so I can work out his birth year. He was a barbiere, a barber, and was already widowed, his spouse was Rosa Leone, and he lived at Vico Morrutto (the number of the address isn’t indicated, it says “senza”, none). Funnily enough, as I was wandering the streets of Taranto before having done this search, I took a photo of a motorino in a classic, arched Taranto alleyway – a search on google maps when I got home told me that very alleyway was the tiny Vico Morrutto. Amazing to think we walked the narrow street of my daughters’ great-great-great-grandfather’s home without knowing it.

Francesco Cardellicchio was the father of Nicola Cardellicchio, whose death certificate I was able to find easily too. A construction worker (muratore) like his brother Angelo, Nicola also died young at age 35 on August 1, 1885, two weeks before the birth of his son (as I learned from another birth certificate), Nicola Cardellicchio – yes, confusingly they have the same name, and this happens. This younger Nicola was the great-grandfather of my husband – and the husband of Anna, whose polpette are a family heirloom and one of the most treasured recipes in Tortellini at Midnight, a recipe that has made it’s way from 1800s Taranto up to Turin and then to my Tuscan mother in law’s table (the photo below is from the book, taken by Lauren Bamford, I cannot resist her photo of it!).

In a birth certificate:

Nonna Anna‘s birth certificate (atto di nascita), along with her brothers and sisters, were easy to see in a list of names because they had four or five names, not just one – a sign of their noble family heritage, my mother in law says. Anna Michaela Comasia Maria Calianno was born on 13th of May 1889. You’ll see similar information to a death certificate but the information here will round out what else you know about the family. In this certificate, it mentions Anna’s father, Francesco Calianno, age forty, a pharmacist, living in Via Duomo (what a difference an address makes, while Vico Morrutto is a tiny, enclosed alleyway in the rabbit-warren like part of Taranto, Via Duomo is the main street in town, full of elegant palazzi, leading of course to the basilica). So now I have Francesco’s birth year, I can presume his job and his address meant he was extremely educated and well off, which supports the family stories of Anna’s nobility.

Interestingly, on a birth certificate, the mother’s name will also have her residency and her father’s name next to it, for example, “Girolama Melucci di Taranto di Giuseppe di anni trentasei” – so now you know she was born in Taranto and you can also search for “Giuseppe Melucci” to find Anna’s mother’s father and his family. Also you have the information that Girolama was thirty-six years old when she gave birth.

This last tidbit resulted in a thoroughly interesting discovery of the family history where I actually was able to find more information through the lines of all the women in the family than the men, thanks to the way the birth certificates were filled out.

Marriage certificates:

Not all archives have marriage certificates. Taranto is one that doesn’t have them and I speculate that this is because marriage records were kept in the parishes in Puglia. Again, the information that you have from a marriage certificate is interesting, especially as you have the parents names of both husband and wife, ages and more. Flicking through randomly, I found some interesting bits and pieces from records as diverse as Mantova and Agrigento in Sicily. Some were absolutely indecipherable, being entirely handwritten. In one Sicilian wedding certificate I saw the parents of both husband and wife were not named, but referenced, “madre ignota” and “padre ignoto”, unknown parents, which usually means the person in question was an orphan, and your trail might end there!

I hope this is a helpful start to researching your Italian family history. I could – and did – spend countless hours immersed in it and every new discovery had that same satisfaction of finding a piece in a puzzle – until I reached the end where I think I’ll have to visit the parishes to fill in the rest. It will be a good excuse to visit Puglia again. I leave you with some photographs I took of Taranto in film from our last visit there while researching for Tortellini at Midnight. Happy searching!

Ricotta al forno, a simple baked ricotta cake

I’ve been craving a really good baked ricotta cheesecake lately, but after having a disappointingly bouncy and ‘squeaky’ one recently, I was feeling a bit picky about it. I wanted it above all to be simple — no water baths, or covering your cake tin in foil, and not even a crust, none of this having to crush biscuits with a rolling pin and press the crumbs into a tin! I just wanted a creamy, lemony, fluffy cheesecake that I could stir with a fork in one bowl and bake. Then I thought, wouldn’t it be nice to do it without any flour, so it can be suitable for gluten free or flour intolerant needs (there are just a few spoonfuls of cornstarch but you could do away with that too if you don’t have it).

In case you’re looking for that too, here she is. I’m calling her “ricotta al forno,” simply, “baked ricotta”.

The key, I should warn you, in such a simple recipe that showcases the ricotta, is that you really do need to get proper ricotta – something very fresh, possibly made that same day, thick, creamy curds stable enough to hold up in a mound, weeping with whey. There is nothing like the fresh creamy ricotta that I am lucky enough to have access to every day in Italy and I know it may not be as easy in other places to get the good stuff, but if you can, look for it in an Italian grocer or delicatessen where the sight of a large, wobbly mound of ricotta in the glass counter will tell you you’re in the right place — or even better, get it from your local artisan cheesemaker. Another option is to “make your own” ricotta-like fresh curd (made with milk rather than whey), which is a little more work but certainly worthwhile for a delicious outcome in this very simple recipe.

An aside about industrial ricotta. Don’t use it. There is no point in cooking with ricotta out of a tub from the supermarket that has a suspiciously far away use by date (the real thing should be eaten quite quickly, a matter of a few days). Industrially produced ricotta has a different texture, the curds don’t separate from the whey, in fact there may be no visible curds at all and it often is too runny, with a consistency of yoghurt. Often these tubs also have thickeners or gums (that dubious additive carrageenan, for example, which serves to hold in the liquid rather than have it drain out like real ricotta naturally does). When these are cooked, these additives give the dish, whatever it may be, an unpleasantly grainy texture. Real freshly made ricotta is incredibly creamy, and is never grainy. I can guarantee you that absolutely a decent ricotta will make or break this very simple recipe — and any recipe you use that calls for ricotta.

Now that we have that straight, this baked ricotta is so delicious on its own but if you do want to dress her up, one suggestion is some gently simmered, lightly sweetened berries (or fresh ones) and a blob of unsweetened cream (heavy cream is lovely but in Florence it’s near impossible to come across, so I use single pouring cream, shaken in a jar until thickened). Even a simple dusting of powdered sugar could be nice.

Ricotta al forno (Baked ricotta cake)

150 grams sugar

2 eggs, beaten

4 level tablespoons (30 grams) of potato starch (fecola di patate) or cornstarch, sifted

500 grams fresh ricotta

60 ml (1/4 cup) single cream

zest and juice of 2 organic/not treated lemons

Heat oven to 165C (330 F). In a bowl, combine the sugar, eggs and starch (potato starch or cornstarch give a tender crumb to cakes and happen to be gluten free, but if you don’t have either handy, try it without). Whisk together until smooth and lump-free. Add the ricotta, stirring through (break it up with a fork first if it is very firm) until well combined, then stir through the cream then lemon zest and juice until smooth. Pour the batter into a 20-22cm cake tin, buttered and lined with parchment paper and bake for 45-50 minutes or until golden brown on top and with the slightest wobble.

Finally, one meal we can enjoy as a family – Tuscan spiedini di carne.

I have a picky eater. For any fellow distressed parents of picky eaters (in particular parents who care about and love food, whose lives even revolve around food) out there, I’m here to say it’s all going to turn out fine.

My daughter Mariu was always particular with food. She refused to eat baby mush. Or be spoon-fed. No purees, her tightly sealed lips made sure they never reached her tongue. We did baby led weaning without even realising what it was at the time, I just had no other choice to get her to eat solids — she wanted to feed herself.

Until she was about three years old, she was a great eater. We traveled a lot with her, she ate plenty of vegetables, fish, rice — good, wholesome food, and she loved cooking with me in the kitchen. We always baked or made pasta together, we still do. As she got older, though, she began cutting out and refusing food, even whole food groups! By five, she had cut things down to just a handful of dishes — plain white pasta with parmesan cheese, plain white rice, hot dogs with mayonnaise, deep fried calamari and pizza rossa (just tomato sauce, no cheese). Frustratingly, pasta with tomato sauce no, even though she liked the flavours on pizza, and even worse, only spaghetti, no other shapes of pasta would pass her lips. Once I tried to grate pecorino on her spaghetti and she caught me out, “Mamma, this parmigiano tastes strange.” There was no getting past her, sneaking other flavours in.

The only vegetables accepted were raw carrots and raw cucumber. Fruit has thankfully never been a problem (oddly, neither were ‘treats’ because she refused to even taste cake, cookies or chocolate! That photo of her above about to bite down on a grilled chocolate sandwich is posed — she didn’t want to eat it, can you believe this child?). And she has always loved cooking and helping in the kitchen, whether it is biscotti, or pasta (maltagliati is especially a hit, so achievable, even for a toddler!), or her nonna’s lasagne, which she has been helping make since she could stand on a chair.

I despaired every meal time. I cooked other things for her to try and they’d remain uneaten. I worried about her health. As she grew older and lost her toddler shape, I watched her legs get longer and her body get skinnier, like she was stretched out. The pediatrician even gave me an appetite stimulator to give her — but I could never get her to try it. It got to a point where she didn’t even want to play at a friend’s house because she was worried they would offer her to eat something she didn’t/couldn’t bring herself to eat and she would break down in tears. At school — and this is a subject for another blog post on its own — she refused to eat the lunches at all and would come home at 4:30pm with an empty stomach. For someone who has always loved, relished and cherished good food, I found all of this extremely disheartening.

At a friend’s suggestions I bought — and devoured — Bee Wilson’s First Bite. I can’t even begin to describe what an excellent and fascinating book this is, for anyone who is interested in food (not just for parents wondering why their child is picky and what to do), how we learn to eat and why we choose or prefer the things we do, this is a book that explores the origins of our tastes and our eating habits, it really should be ready by everybody! I learned many, many important things through this book but my biggest takeaway for our issue at home was:

This is a natural phase. It will end. And keep in mind, between the ages of four to six is the ‘peak’ of this picky, food refusal phase.
Keep offering new dishes, keep offering new flavours, keep going. But don’t do it at meal time, which just makes it stressful for everyone. Instead, try making it a game and do it with something pea-sized (“You’ll get a sticker! Let’s see how many you can get!”)

You see, the trick is they only need to put the new (pea-sized) food in their mouth. They don’t even need to swallow it, their brains only need to register the flavour (taste and smell) of the food. It’s like training, it’s as if everything is an acquired taste. You can do this too with things that famously are either love/hate (but actually you can train yourself to love) like coriander (cilantro) or chili — yes, it works even on adults.

So we have been doing precisely this. Casually offering ‘tiny tastes’, as Wilson calls them, during the day. Offering them while we are cooking, or out, or traveling, sometimes also during meals when I knew it wouldn’t stress her out.

Mariu just turned seven. It’s as if someone clicked their fingers and finally granted my wishes from the past few years (my dream: to only have to cook one meal for all four of us to enjoy around the table together). She is not only trying the new foods — she’s enjoying them! And asking for more! She is eating lunch at school! Just in the past two weeks, we have enjoyed pasta con le vongole, homemade Japanese curry, a warming bowl of udon noodles in dashi stock, these oven roasted spiedini below of sausage, pork, chicken and bread with a heaping side of roast potatoes, tortellini and ravioli filled with ricotta and spinach, my homemade fried rice (my personal comfort food) and fusilli have been dressed with pesto! She finally tried chocolate recently too, and nutella. And other gelato flavours — lemon sorbet and creamy hazelnut, what a revelation! And she is now making up for lost time.

It may be just the beginning but I always had a hunch things would turn out fine. Partly because I watched my fussy little brother who refused to eat fish his entire childhood (always annoying on our frequent visits to Japan to visit my grandparents) suddenly turn into a seafood lover at 17. And partly because my own husband — my gastronomic partner in crime, lover of all food and wine — was, if you go by the family stories, the worst offender of pickiness who ever lived. My mother in law says he survived on only Plasmon biscuits and pizza margherita until he was a teenager. As a child, she took him to the pediatrician, worried he wasn’t growing because he was a whole head shorter than his classmates. “Signora,” the doctor said to her, “Pizza is perfectly fine. It has everything — tomatoes, wheat, cheese. Let him eat pizza.” And I think sometimes we do just need to let go and not be overly worried, realising that, as long a we keep offering, keep encouraging, keep teaching and informing our children about good food choices, they will get there.

Below I share a family recipe for grilled (or oven roasted) skewers, a classic Tuscan recipe that I have always loved at my mother in law’s house — now, we are finally able to enjoy it as a whole family!

Spiedini di Carne alla Toscana

Tuscan style roasted meat and bread skewers

This recipe comes from my latest cookbook, Tortellini at Midnight.

It is a homely, heavenly, hearty roast of mixed meats (perfect for families who have a different favourite), the sort of thing my mother in law would prepare for Sunday lunch. The best bit is actually the bread — soft on the inside, crisp on the outside and flavoured with sausage fat, olive oil, white wine and herbs; make sure you don’t skimp on it, everyone loves it! All you need with this is a bowl of seasonal greens (a green salad in the warmer months, or lovely blanched dark leafy greens tossed through a pan with garlic and olive oil in the cooler months), perhaps some potatoes, which you can roast underneath the skewers too. And a bunch of crunchy carrot and cucumber sticks, if that is what the kids are into.

Serves 4

300 g (101/2 oz) pork neck or fresh pancetta

300 g (101/2 oz) pork and fennel sausages (approx.)

200 g (7 oz) chicken thighs

1 baguette loaf

8 fresh bay leaves

8 fresh sage leaves

4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra for greasing

60 ml (2 fl oz/1/4 cup) dry white wine

Preheat the oven to 180ºC (350ºF), if roasting these (for cooking on the barbecue see below).

Cut the pork into chunks (aim for about sixteen pieces, about 1.5–2 cm or about 1/2 inch thick) and divide the sausages into sixteen pieces. Cut the chicken into about eight pieces, roughly the size and thickness of the pork. Rub the pork and the chicken with a few pinches of salt and freshly ground pepper.

Cut the baguette into twenty-four rounds, about 1-2 cm (1/2 – 1 inch) thick.

Thread eight metal skewers tightly with the ingredients in roughly the following order: a slice of bread, sausage, a piece of chicken, a sage leaf, a piece of pork, a slice of bread, sausage, a fresh bay leaf, a piece of pork, finish with a slice of bread.

Place the skewers in a baking dish greased with olive oil. Drizzle the skewers with some more olive oil, pour the white wine over them and bake for 30 minutes, turning halfway.

To cook this on the barbecue, after pouring the wine and olive oil over the skewers, cook over a not-too-hot part of the barbecue, turning regularly until the bread is golden and the meat cooked through. If the bread begins to burn too quickly, I suggest finishing the cooking in the oven.

All the photographs in this blog post are by Lauren Bamford. Deb Kaloper styled them. We shot them on location for my cookbook at my friend Irene’s B&B, Valdirose, just outside of Florence (that is her wonderful dad, Giovanni, on the barbecue!).

Foraging, handmade ink and dye workshop + a recipe for dyeing with turmeric

I have always loved wandering the Tuscan countryside (or Melbourne city!), picking plants and flowers to inspire a meal. And ever since learning how to dye fabric with foraged plants (see below for a ‘recipe’), I’ve fallen in love with the idea of sharing this beautiful, sustainable process, along with making handmade natural inks over a truly creative, inspiring few days. So I’m very pleased to announce a new and unique workshop in Florence for May 2020, where we will spend a few days foraging for, making and playing with natural ink and fabric dyeing in the serene setting of one of Tuscany’s prettiest B&Bs, Valdirose in Lastra a Signa, a 15 minute train ride from Florence.

Our wonderful teachers are two creatives whose work I absolutely adore, Kathryn Davey and Marta Abbott. They will guide us in their specialties — Kathryn dyeing fabric with plant-based dyes and Marta’s being natural ink making and painting (just see their instagram accounts for the beautiful work they both do!). I have even twisted the arm of Irene Berni, Valdirose’s owner, to teach us a styling and flower arranging class and once you see how dreamy the space is that she has created, you will be so glad I did.

Plants and flowers will feature largely in the local and seasonal food that I will prepare for our meals too (think fried robinia flowers and wisteria, stinging nettle tortellini and saffron hued pasta, elderflower infused sponge cake), which we will sometimes make together and always share on long tables with natural wines, all on the charming grounds of Valdirose — “Wandering wooded paths and flowering fields in search of supplies and inspiration,” as Marta says — for a few wonderful days of creative nourishment. Would you like to join us?

About your hosts:

I first met Kathryn at our co-hosted workshop at beautiful Melisses on the Greek Island of Andros. She is a natural dyer based in Dublin, Ireland. She works exclusively with natural fibers to create a line of homewares and accessories for her company. She loves sharing the magic of natural dyes with others and teaches ongoing workshops in Dublin, London and elsewhere.

Marta Abbott is a Czech-American artist currently based in Italy. In addition to her painting, Marta has spent time in the worlds of art restoration and floral design. She lived in New York before moving to Rome in 2012. The natural world is the primary focus of Marta’s work and as such, the use of natural inks made from organic and often foraged materials like plants and flowers instinctively became a part of her process. A favourite part of her learning process is sharing what she’s learned with others and encouraging them to discover the world of natural inks for themselves.

Irene Berni is Tuscan born and bred. Since 2007 she has run her family’s B&B, Valdirose, in Lastra a Signa and here she creates atmosphere, develops recipes and hosts events that celebrate the beauty of small things. She loves details, frugality, light, fabrics and natural materials and when not preparing her beautiful breakfasts at Valdirose, she’s fossicking through markets and antique stores. She has written two cookbooks (in Italian) and has a monthly column for “Cook” of Corriere della Sera.

Emiko Davies is an Australian-Japanese cookbook author based in Florence, Italy, since 2005. Before writing three cookbooks on regional Italian cuisine, she studied art restoration in Florence, Fine Art in the US, and worked as an art restorer, a darkroom assistant and art history tour guide. She loves art as much as cooking and sees the two things as very intertwined.

Included in the workshop are:

3 nights accommodation at Valdirose (double occupancy)
Two lessons in plant dyeing natural fabrics with Kathryn Davey
Two lessons in natural ink making with Marta Abbott
Styling session with Irene Berni
All meals (3 breakfasts, 3 lunches and 2 dinners) catered by cookbook author Emiko Davies
Natural wines with meals, a foraged flower welcome cocktail
A meal out at a local trattoria together
All materials, which includes a kit for each participant containing fabric to dye, paper, brushes and ink bottles.
Small group of 6-8 participants

Price: 1150 euro per participant (single supplement 350 euro)

Book your place with a 50% deposit now.

Tea and turmeric dyed cotton market totes

A few months ago while I was in Australia, I was gifted some beautiful organic cotton market totes (above left) from sustainable Melbourne brand Toko Eco. I wholeheartedly love them and they come everywhere with me so I never have to use or accept plastic bags while shopping (I’m happy to say that Toko will be supplying some of their totes for each participant at the workshop too). To customise them, I decided to dye them inspired by what I learned from Kathryn Davey’s workshop and I used just a few simple household ingredients — English breakfast tea and powdered turmeric!

What you need:

2 clean cotton totes
2 tea bags (or equivalent loose leaf) of any black tea
2 heaped teaspoons of powdered turmeric
a wooden spoon and a big pot

How to do it:

If your cotton totes are already used, make sure they are washed in warm water before dyeing to avoid any inconsistencies in the process. Technically, washing soda, soda ash or even baking soda should be added to the wash to prepare the fabric before dyeing (they help remove any spots that may have grease or other substances on them that will dye differently) but I admit I skipped this for the totes, I just rinsed them in warm water. You can also leave them to soak overnight first.

To help the turmeric dye ‘stick’, the fabric needs to be pre-soaked with a fixative or mordant, or a tannic substance (tea!). Note, you can use a dye that is naturally high in tannins, avocado pits for example, which make a pretty pink, and skip the mordant. I used English breakfast tea. Put a pot of water to boil (use enough to cover your fabric) and add the tea bags or equivalent in leaf tea. Let boil 5 minutes to make it quite strong. Dip your damp totes into the pot of hot, strong tea and let them simmer for at least 15 minutes, then remove and let soak until you are happy with the colour if you would like to simply have a tea-dyed tote (this comes out a lovely, pale rosy-beige). Rinse in fresh water and let dry if you are done. Continue below to dye with turmeric.

To dye the tea-dyed totes yellow, fill a pot with enough water to cover the totes. Add the powdered turmeric and bring to a simmer. Add the damp totes and let simmer gently for about 15 minutes then let soak off heat for about 1 hour or until you have the colour desired. Play around with this process, the longer you leave it the deeper the colour, and obviously less time, the paler the colour. Rinse in fresh water and hang to dry.

Read more from Kathryn’s journal on dyeing with avocado pits here.

Egg yolk ravioli (and a white truffle experience)

One of the highlights of 2019 was hosting the White Truffle and Wine Culinary Retreat here in Tuscany with my husband Marco Lami.

We had 13 international guests (from as far as Argentina and Canada and as close as Abruzzo!) together in a big, traditional Tuscan farmhouse, surrounded by woods. It may have rained quite intensely (it was November after all), but we donned rain boots to visit the olive groves and go truffle hunting and during downtime we curled up in front of the fireplace to play cards, to chat and sip wine.

We explored the Chianti classico, visiting wineries and wonderful artisan goat cheese farm. And we did a lot of cooking together and eating, all centred around the local and seasonal delicacies of Tuscany’s autumn, aka white truffles. In short, it was my ideal week, and I hope it was too, for everyone else.

One of the favourite dishes we made together – and I think the perfect way to eat white truffles – was my version of a very famous egg yolk raviolo recipe, created over 40 years ago for two Michelin star restaurant San Domenico, and copyrighted by Italian chef  Nino Bergese (even though it is quite possibly one of the most copied recipes ever – a perfect egg yolk nestled inside a raviolo, how could it not be?). It is often called the “Raviolo Bergese” though the official registered name is “Uovo in raviolo San Domenico con burro di malga, Parmigiano dolce a tartufo di bianco.” The yolk is still runny so when you cut into the oversized ravioli, the yolk spills out creating the most luscious “sauce” that mixes with the butter and truffles and cheese. It is difficult not to just lick the plate clean!

The original recipe is a spinach and ricotta filling but I make it more like my favourite ricotta ravioli pasta recipe (which you can also find in my cookbook, Florentine) and also without needing any piping bags or special cutters — after all, we are not in a Michelin star kitchen, even though this has all the flavours of a Michelin star meal!

P.S. We will announce our 2020 White Truffle and Wine Retreat in the new year. If you want to keep up to date on our food and wine programs, do head below or over here and subscribe to the workshop newsletter to get the news a day before everyone else.

Raviolo Bergese al tartufo bianco

Egg yolk ravioli with white truffle

Serves 4-6 as a starter

For the pasta:

400 g (14 oz) flour

2 eggs, plus 4 yolks (set aside egg white for later)

2 tablespoons water

For the filling:

250 gr ricotta

100 g  grated parmesan cheese, plus more for serving

12 yolks, plus 1 extra

To serve:

100 g (13/4 oz) salted butter

white truffle, finely grated (about 5 grams per person)

For the pasta, put the flour in a bowl and make a well in the centre. Put the eggs, yolks and 2 tablespoons of water in the well. With a fork, begin to whisk the eggs, incorporating the flour little by little until you can no longer whisk with the fork. Use floured hands to combine the rest of the flour until you have a smooth, elastic dough. Wrap in plastic wrap and let it rest at least 30 minutes.

Cut the dough into four pieces and dust with plenty of flour. Roll out the dough using a pasta machine or rolling pin. The dough should be thin enough so that you can see your hand through it.

For the filling, combine  ricotta and parmesan with 1 egg yolk and a pinch of salt.

Use a well-floured wooden board to make the ravioli. Working on strips of pasta at least 10 cm (4 in) wide and as long as you like, place 1 heaped tablespoon of ricotta filling onto the pasta sheet about 5 cm (2 in) apart. With the back of a spoon, shape a little hole in the ricotta for the egg yolk to nestle into. Separate an egg and, place the yolk in each nest of ricotta.

Brush some of the leftover egg white from earlier all around the filling. Then place a sheet of pasta of the same width and length over the top and, working quickly, press the pasta sheet down carefully around each spoonful of filling, try not to trap too much air. Work from one side to the other and, if needed (and if you have two extra hands helping you), work one raviolo at a time. With a fluted pastry wheel cutter or a sharp knife, trim the raviolo so that you have a 1 cm (1/2 in) border around the filling and, if necessary, transfer each finished raviolo to a well-floured tray lined with parchment (yes, double protection, parchment and flour). Continue until you finish the pasta and filling.

Melt the butter in a large frying pan over medium heat. Don’t let it burn, we want to keep this butter sweet and mellow. Add a ladleful of the pasta cooking water and swirl in the pan and let simmer  to create a slightly thicker sauce. Cook the raviolo immediately in a saucepan of salted, gently simmering water until al dente, but don’t overcook the yolks – I find a timer set to 2 minutes is perfect, you can cook it up to 3 minutes if your pasta is slightly thicker and you feel it is not cooked through.

When the ravioli are ready, pull them out of the water gently with a slotted spoon, if you need to drain, a clean, damp tea towel lining a tray is best – place directly on top until you pull out all the ravioli. Place them on a platter or divide directly into plates, add some of the melted butter, sprinkle over grated cheese, grate the truffle directly over and serve immediately.