Tomato Tribute

Solanum lycopersicum

 (fruit of the month)

 

Our beef tomato (cuore di bue) crop this year has offered up some impressive specimens.

One above all, weighing in at 877 grams, has inspired a tribute from afar. 

"Every August a tomato festival is held in the little village of San Giovanni Pomodorino. Contestants come from near and far for the coveted prize, pomodoro gigantico, which is to produce a cuore di bue as near as possible to 1 kilo in weight. 
 

This year Lulu from the nearby village of Santa Letizia Martina arrived late for the ceremony.  She rushed up to the stall where the judges were already preparing to award the prize.  Only one tomato had managed just under 850 grams.  

When they saw the size of Lulu’s entry the judges conferred and decided to accept her exhibit.  They placed the tomato on the scales.  It came in at just under 900 grams.  The chief judge who came from the rival village of San Giuseppe Solanum surreptitiously put her finger on the scales to give a reading of 1000 grams.
 

Lulu returned in triumph to her village where the cuore di bue now sits benignly in a niche, labelled In excelsis australis."

Thanks to H of Higher Bugford, North Devon.

Abbadia San Salvatore, on the slopes of Monte Amiata

 A Town Full of Surprises

 

Monte Amiata

It is not where most tourists stop on their way around Monte Amiata in southern Tuscany. Abbadia San Salvatore is a township of 6000 souls on the northern slopes of Tuscany's most easily identifiable mountain. Unassuming and ordinary, it is the sort of place you drive through hurriedly, on your way to somewhere interesting.

And yet we stopped: was it that lunch beckoned, or was it that we noticed a sign proclaiming Abbadia San Salvatore as the home of an ancient Bible? Somehow the quest for lunch and our curiosity combined to make us stop. We would discover that this seemingly dull, grey town held several surprises.

Tending the Rhubarb and Tomato Jungles

The pleasures of a vegetable garden

butternut pumpkin flowers

Food of the Month: Remarkable Cavolo Nero or Tuscan Kale

 A Rustic Vegetable, Rediscovered

other names for this brassica are dinosaur kale, black kale, flat back cabbage, palm tree kale

It appears that a local peasant staple is currently the healthfood of choice in much of the western world. Brassica oleracea Lacinato is a tough plant which requires little attention and enjoys a long growing season, from one spring to another. It is particularly crunchy and tasty following winter frost. 

Figgy Pudding

What to do with all the booty

 This year, with its hottest summer on record, seems to have worked wonders in the field. I am told that the grapes are promising, the olives are abundant and I can certainly attest to the incredible fig harvest of 2015, which is petering out only now. 

Vegetable Patch or Vegetable Garden?

The Choice Before Us

Gardening is hard work. Enjoyable, but hard. A vegetable patch, which requires constant care: planting, watering, hoeing,weeding, pruning and harvesting, and whose produce is by its nature almost entirely seasonal, is consequently very hard work.
There is a local saying, l'orto vuole l'uomo morto or 'the vegie patch will be the death of you', loosely translated.
With that in mind, here is how things are evolving da noi/chez nous.

Slow Food in Greve

 Greve does it again

You cannot deny that Greve is bursting with initiative. Last weekend it was the Flower Show, this weekend the town is hosting its annual Slowfood market which highlights the produce of a number of Italian Comuni or towns, from Grumes (Trento) in the north to Positano in the south. 

that lovely backdrop again, plus a stunning sky this weekend

Greve's Annual Flower Market

Greve in Fiore

Once a year at the beginning of May Greve's beautiful piazza is enhanced by serried ranks of flowering plants.

Wild herbs and weeds for lunch

Country lore and the table

The 4th Sunday of every month a small organic market is held at Greve in Chianti where almost all the produce is local. The market is called Il Pagliaio which literally means straw rick or stack.

Fresh bread and other baked goods, herbs and spices, preserves and jams, cheeses, wine and oil are all on sale. One or two stalls also sell their farm-grown vegetables. And one stall in particular, run by two soft-spoken farmers, husband and wife, specializes in fresh herbs and edible 'weeds' gathered in the countryside. 

strigoli, clematis vitalba sprouts and wild asparagus

Chamois of the Alps in Chianti

On Goats and Cheese at 

Podere Le Fornaci

first glimpse of Podere Le Fornaci from a cypress-lined avenue which leads to Villa Calcinaia and Podere Le Fornaci

Since the year 2000, 30 hectares of farmland just north of Greve in Chianti have been home to an increasingly large herd of chamois goats. 

 

the podere (Tuscan name for farm) with its goat huts below the hills

the farm from near the river flats where a large basin (right) has been created to collect floodwater from the Greve river; otherwise it is used for grazing

the younger of the only two billy goats at the farm; the beard and the thicker horns are the giveaway. This individual is one year old; his name is Canederlo; the older one is called Elvis

Florence's Slow Food Hall

il Mercato Centrale

- an historic market revisited

Florence's central market, located near San Lorenzo and the touristy outdoor market, is a piece of Florentine's domestic history. There are those of us who visited it as young tourists, to buy peaches for our picnic lunches in the Boboli gardens, or who recall 'the market gardeners and wild herb foragers who would sell their pickings much as in the Mayan markets of yore', to quote a friend. 
Nowadays even the ground floor stalls, shown above, look more like upmarket shops than market stalls.
This does not appear to detract from the quality of their ware although it probably affects the prices. All they same, they seemed to be humming when we visited on a weekday morning.

Yet this post focuses on the first floor of the market which has been transformed from the gritty, colourful, rustic reality of the past into a stylish, cheerful, (upmarket in quality but not, it appears, in price), food hall crammed with goodies. Since spring 2014, this is where the hungry working Florentine or the tourist who is unable to deal with all the raw produce downstairs, can come to savour the finished products. 
As you climb the stairs (or take an escalator) to the first floor the first thing you see is the attractive architecture of the old market: cast iron neo-classical pillars, pietra serena columns, overarching wrought iron girding and tall arched windows which let in considerable natural light. 

Home produce

The Egg of the Goose and other Good Things

goose eggs next to hen's

A friend has given us three goose eggs. The shell is thick and has to be cracked open with decision. The yolks are huge and deep yellow. Three eggs make an excellent omelette for four. And there is little difference in flavour between this and a good, fresh hen's egg.

This year we are not growing any vegetables in our vegie patch as it is being turned into a medieval garden or hortus conclusus, and the new vegie patch is being constructed, raised beds and all. There will be no magnificent tomatoes or freshest lettuce this summer as we shall have to wait for the notorious fence (see side column) before planting anything deer might desire. However the strawberries and rhubarb in the old vegie patch continue to thrive and the walls of climbing roses are tall and full of buds.

Olive Oil 2

Fruit of the Month: the Olive
or
The Olive Harvest 2013

Recently (January 2014) a horrifying animated chart appeared in the New York Times exposing (not for the first time) olive oil fraud. This should make us appreciate the small producers more and understand that their prices are high for a good reason. And here is an excellent blog by Tom Mueller which covers the subject of olive oil and oil fraud very well.

For more on olive oil please see last year's post as well.

 

I was unable to participate in the olive harvest this year as planned, but a friend who took part for the first time has provided some photos and a couple of excellent short films to give an idea of how things are done nowadays in Chianti.

This year rain was a problem: it held up the harvest from one day to the next. But in the end everyone managed to make their oil.

Hot off the New York Times

Breakneck Tour of Central Chianti 

Despite making little mention of the sights to be seen between stops, this article from the New York Times has some (largely gastronomic/hedonistic)  pointers for

a 36-hour trip to Chianti

 - although no one should be foolish enough to imagine it suffices!

Festa Aprilante Panzano + Eroica

Panzano Allegro con Brio and Bikes

Giocondo Fagioli and his baskets made of rushes he gathers himself

In Panzano in Chianti every first Sunday of the month, every month of the year,  the Festa Aprilante is held. This is a market which stretches from the main square on the 222 all the way up towards the church and along the street where Cecchini the butcher reigns.

Fruit of the Month: Figs

It's that fig time again

I wrote about figs last year but it is fitting to record this year's harvest of the most abundant, low-maintenance, stress-free gift of the gods we have at Le Ripe.

I predict I shall be bottling kilos of fig puree this season, but our guests will also be able to benefit from the bounty of our several trees.

To think that we did not have to plant, cage, prune, feed or spray these trees. Our only task is to harvest and eat.

Vino al Vino Panzano's Wine Festival

Wine to Wine

 a September Highlight

Every year in the middle of September Panzano holds its wine festival showcasing the local vineyards. In the main square of Panzano, right on the 222 between Florence and Siena you can buy a glass and pouch to carry it in for 15 euro and taste as many wines as you have a mind to.

There is live music, a festive atmosphere, the local shops and tradesmen are all open and welcoming and there are even things for children to do...

The new Antinori Winery in Chianti

Twenty-six Generations under One Roof

Past and present: the timeless beauty of Badia Passignano from a model at the Antinori Chianti museum

Present and future: the grand plan for the streamlined winery to outdo all wineries

You have to admire the audacity of the Antinori family: to plan, construct and complete a project of this size and ambition in a territory where modernity is often anathema.

Hazelnut Harvest

Getting in before the wild boar and squirrels

this year's hazlenuts from the cossetted hedge

 

 I used to be surprised when our elderly neighbour, Signor Bonechi, would come up our drive in mid August to shake the hazelnuts out of the trees. It seemed to early: surely hazelnuts are an autumn crop? Over time I have come to realize that Signor Bonechi was simply canny. 

impossible to photograph, our squirrels resemble this black squirrel but are tinier, more feathery-looking and with a deep burgundy tinge to the black

Red Harvest

Pomodori!

Our pride and joy - and pleasure - this morning's harvest of cuore di bue (beefsteak-type), fiorentini (local, grooved tomatoes) and cherry-type picadilly tomatoes. Some we leave to ripen on the sill, others we store in the fridge, most we eat as soon as possible, see below. 

Tomato Toasts

nice simple recipe for quick summer lunch

make toast with your favourite bread;

fatly slice beefsteak tomatoes;

generously drizzle good olive oil on toast;

  add tomatoes, salt 
and lots of freshly-ground pepper. 

Perfetto.