Flo­rence, heav­en­ly Florence

This trip to Flo­rence was a mile­stone for me: in a moment of epiphany, I real­ized that the word “Bronzi­no” con­jures up fishy recipes, these days, rather than an Ital­ian Renais­sance painter.  I think the art his­to­ri­an in me has final­ly, ful­ly giv­en way to the cook.

In a way I felt a bit sad to real­ize this!  To know that it has been a long time since my dusty old PhD in art his­to­ry meant much to me.  The years when Michelan­ge­lo — his poet­ry, his sculp­ture, his birth and death dates — were as famil­iar to me as a nurs­ery rhyme, are now a long time ago.  I had to look things up in the guide­books just as often as did my fam­i­ly, who used to rely on me for all the infor­ma­tion they could want, wan­der­ing through a muse­um.  Now, Avery and I raced as quick­ly as we could through the Pit­ti Palace and the Uffizi, me intent only on get­ting to the Cen­tral Mar­ket and she long­ing for a go at the crowd­ed shelves in the soap and cos­met­ics shops!  Times do change, and you can’t waste too much time pre­tend­ing they don’t.

And so I approached Flo­rence and the art world there as just anoth­er tourist, much as I did the Peg­gy Guggen­heim Muse­um in Venice... a lit­tle nos­tal­gic for the old intel­lec­tu­al me, but awful­ly hap­py all the same to pack my suit­case with salamis, porci­ni mush­rooms and truf­fle oil, leav­ing the post­cards of art to oth­er peo­ple.  And being a tourist, with my love­ly teenag­er see­ing every­thing for the first time, was very nice indeed.

We arrived on Mon­day after­noon to the Casa Gui­di, an elab­o­rate apart­ment above Piaz­za di Felice, one of the Land­mark Trust’s tru­ly unfor­get­table places to stay.  It was lived in by Eliz­a­beth Bar­rett and Robert Browning.

The house remains a muse­um to them even now, open two after­noons a week to what­ev­er poet­ry-obsessed tourists there might be, want­i­ng to see their pho­tographs and sil­ver pieces under glass.  High ceil­ings, ornate­ly paint­ed with put­ti and harps and carved with plas­ter ros­es, gor­geous 19th cen­tu­ry fur­ni­ture, row upon row of leather-bound books.

Com­plete­ly lux­u­ri­ous and styl­ish, such a treat to set­tle our belong­ings, and then go out to explore.  We walked around the neigh­bor­hood, which is on the “oth­er side” of the Arno (the one with­out the Duo­mo!), and dis­cov­ered, in a street called “Bor­go San Jacopo”  a gor­geous trat­to­ria called La Dis­pen­sa, pur­vey­ors of the most gor­geous salamis, cheeses and breads you can imagine.

I sam­pled some­thing called “finoc­chiona,” a soft, gar­licky, fen­nel-seed-fla­vored meaty con­coc­tion.  HEAV­EN.  And because my spo­ken Ital­ian is decep­tive­ly good — a good accent, but unre­li­able lis­ten­ing skills! — the pro­pri­etress imme­di­ate­ly went into very detailed ecstasies with me, only some of which I caught.

“What you are eat­ing there, is the tra­di­tion­al finoc­chiona which is pro­duced only in Chi­anti, Flo­rence and Siena.  It is the finoc­ciona sbri­ci­o­la­ta, which means…”

“Not the hard sort,” I ven­ture, “but…”

She made a ges­ture with her hands, a sort of “falling apart” gesture.

“Sbri­ci­o­la­ta… to crum­ble,” she fin­ish­es triumphantly.

And it did.  A soft­ly crum­bling slice of HEAV­EN.  Sheer heaven.

The finoc­chiona, along with some salame Toscano (a dense, soft, lean salame that Avery adores), moz­zarel­la di bufala, fresh rock­et and tiny red pep­pers stuffed with anchovies and capers: quite the per­fect lunch!

Well, that could have been the whole hol­i­day for me!  Just trip after trip to the deli, every time sam­pling more and more things.  For exam­ple, there was a limon­cel­lo SPRAY!  In a spray can!  I real­ly want­ed to try that, but was­n’t sure what cus­toms would think.  And my dears, the CHEESES!  Have you ever heard of, much less eat­en, FRESH pecori­no?  Nei­ther had I!  Not strict­ly speak­ing fresh, because it had been aged 21 days, but per­fect­ly white, soft, melt-in-the-mouth divinity.

So hap­py.

But because I was not in Flo­rence alone, I had to go along with my fam­i­ly and do — sigh- oth­er things.  But first, we had to have din­ner, and we had decid­ed to go out the first night in case we had­n’t come upon any­thing to eat (as if!) on that first evening.  And fate, plus our love­ly house­keep­er Ele­na, sent us to quite the most charm­ing restau­rant I’ve ever been to.  Across the street from the dar­ling del­i­catessen, at 43 Bor­go San Jacopo, it’s called Il Cinghiale Bian­co, or “The White Wild Boar,” that par­tic­u­lar meat being a tra­di­tion­al Flo­ren­tine del­i­ca­cy.  From the moment we walked in every­thing was per­fect.  Warm, invit­ing, high-ceilinged, smelling of a com­bi­na­tion of all good things on earth: gar­lic, but­ter, roast­ed meats, fresh breads.

The maitre d’, or what­ev­er the equiv­a­lent is in Italy, could not have been sweet­er.  Because I real­ly want­ed to under­stand the answers to my ques­tions, I asked per­mis­sion to speak Eng­lish, and of course he was fluent.

“I’d real­ly like to cook some wild boar while I am in Flo­rence,” I explained.  “Can you tell me about a tra­di­tion­al way to cook it?”

“My dear, you could make it as we make it here at the restau­rant.  Let me tell you… Soak it in red wine overnight, with the nec­es­sary veg­eta­bles.  Then cook very slow­ly the next day, with some toma­to puree added at the end.  Allo­ra!”

With these scant instruc­tions I had to be con­tent.  And con­tent I was, with a plate­ful of eggs fried and topped with shaved truf­fle, fol­lowed by roast­ed baby pig, the suc­cu­lent, salty meat falling off the bones, slathered with crispy fat.  John’s mom went for moz­zarel­la di bufala with shaved truf­fle, and a pump­kin ravi­o­li, and since we all relent­less­ly demand­ed to share bites, I can report that every­thing was sub­lime, beyond deli­cious.  How­ev­er, the unques­tioned tri­umph of the night was Avery’s stroz­za­preti con spinaci, a sort of rar­efied, lighter-than-air bright green dumpling, swim­ming in a del­i­cate but­tery sauce, sprin­kled with Pecori­no.  In short, the sort of unearth­ly essence of spinach, a quite, quite per­fect food.

The more I cook, and the hard­er I try, the few­er things there are that I can­not make myself if I real­ly want to (although some­times it’s nice to be cooked for).  The foie gras creme brulee at Angelus, the deep-fried soft­shell crabs at Man­darin Kitchen.  And now, the stroz­za­preti at Cinghiale Bian­co joins the list.  I won’t even both­er to try.  They were just that ridicu­lous­ly good.

I told the love­ly host that we might well be back again the fol­low­ing night!  “Just remem­ber we are closed on Wednes­days,” he cau­tioned, tak­ing me quite seri­ous­ly, as well he should.  Because we did go back!

Our first evening in the apart­ment was an expe­ri­ence of stag­ger­ing grace, sur­round­ed by all the Brown­ings’ pos­ses­sions, lis­ten­ing to the street noise from below, over­laid with the beau­ty of Avery’s play­ing the grand piano!  I’m afraid she’s spoilt for­ev­er now, that our hum­ble upright in the kitchen here in Lon­don will nev­er quite suf­fice again.  The sound soared into the paint­ed ceil­ing and came back at us, ele­gant and touch­ing.  She was won­der­ful.  And that was Day One in Florence…