Season’s Greetings to one and all!

It’s the Christmas season again, time to celebrate, time to plan a festive table around which will sit friends and family in a spirit of love and good cheer. All over the world this is a time when food is given maximum attention, a time when it is not only permissible, but actually expected of you to indulge your taste-buds. But in Italy, where food is a major preoccupation all year round, it is a time of feasting that outdoes itself in richness and variety.

In Italy, a rich and varied table is taken for granted. For instance, some restaurants talk of “full meals”. Tourists think it implies something like a soup, a salad, a main course and a fruit. What the Italian means is usually an ‘anti pasto’ or starter, a soup, an entrée, a main course, comprising meat, poultry or fish with vegetables, maybe a salad, and a choice of desserts.  Cheese and pasta will figure prominently, as well as spices, sauces and herbs, and the meal will be accompanied by wines of different types.

To the Italian, cuisine is a fine art. It has been so since the 16th century. That was the era of da Vinci and Michelangelo, Machiavelli, Cesare Borgia, Rafael, Copernicus, Botticelli Titian and the de’ Medicis. It was the Renaissance period in Europe, when art, science and literature were at their peak. The new era was born in Italy. All the world knows of the great heights reached by art, architecture and literature here. But few know that pinnacles were scaled in the art of cooking too.

Flourishing trade routes had brought spices, condiments and exotic fruits and vegetables into the country, as well as new and innovative cooking methods. Italy discovered, for instance, the heady flavour of food slowly in a wine-based sauce. Then again, they realized the astounding possibilities offered by ice, and the homes of the crème de la crème had small windowless rooms in which great blocks of ice were stored.

Just as in art and architecture, splendour was the order of the day, so also in cuisine. The Italian nobility thought nothing of gorging themselves at tables groaning under the weight of the most exotic dishes, then deliberately regurgitating the food so that they could make room for more. It wasn’t considered decadence. It was considered a fitting tribute to good food!

But food was not valued for taste alone. There was also a great interest in its medicinal properties and religion had a strong influence on menus, with the Church dictating that certain foods were to be avoided at certain times of the year.

Renaissance Italy saw the rise of some super cooks, who have left their mark on the cuisine of the country. These included the chefs of the aristocracy and of Popes.  Martino da Como wrote “Liber De Arte Coquinaria” or Book on the Art of Cookery clarity (1467), and this can be considered the first modern cookery book of the country, because for the first time, precision and clarity were employed in setting out recipes. Only, it wasn’t printed, but hand-written. Platina modified this, added to it, and brought out the first printed cookbook, called On Right Pleasure and Good Health. Then came Domenico Romoli detto Il Panunto’s “La singolar Dottrina" (1560) and Bartolomeo Scappi’s “Opera dell’arte del cucinare” or Work on the Art of Cooking (1570). These books popularized cooking as an art, and opened up new horizons in the field.

The Renaissance chef was interested not only in the unusual and exotic, but also in harmony, order and presentation. It was considered important to serve food in visually appealing and artistic ways. Consequently, a feast at a nobleman’s home may have included fruit carved so exquisitely that it made guests gasp in admiration. Or a main course would have been served up in such an innovative and appealing way that they might have felt it was shame to carve up and eat!  Also, it was understood that certain foods must not be combined, but served separately, to achieve a balance of tastes and nutrition.

The art of fine dining was taken out of Italy by Caterina de’Medici, when she married Henry of Orleans, heir to the French throne. The young Queen, who was only fourteen, was accompanied by an entourage of friends, ladies-in-waiting and chefs, as well as mounds of paraphernalia. Though the French disparagingly referred to her as ‘the grocer’, alluding to her roots in a business family, rather than a noble one, it was she who made the French Court familiar with fine table linen and exquisite crockery. That ubiquitous piece of cutlery – the fork – also owes her a debt. It is said that Caterina was used to eating pasta with a two-pronged fork, and introduced it to France. From there the custom spread.

Apart from the fork, Caterina, or rather her chefs, made the French, and later other Europeans, aware of gastronomic delights such as they’d never previously dreamt of. The desserts that the Italian chefs cooked up, the ices, sorbets and pastries, in particular, were a delight to the taste-conscious Frenchman. Some members of Caterina’s Court have attained immortality thanks to their association with certain dishes. Take Frangipane, for instance, named after Sir Frangipani who was a contemporary of Caterina. The Italians also popularized the use of legumes and introduced dishes like canard a l’orange (duck in orange), and carabaccia (onion soup) which have now become part and parcel of French cuisine.

In Italy itself, while exotic fare was the norm at the rich man’s table, the middle class Italian in the Renaissance era had to make do with more prosaic food, maybe salads, game, goat cheese and figs, with pasta as a staple. The poor man’s fare was definitely plebian and sparse.

But gradually, these distinctions blurred, and Italy came to have a common interest in good food. The menus were dictated by seasons and regions, because freshness was considered an essential aspect.

It was during the Renaissance that rice was introduced and became an integral part of Italian cooking. Enter the risottos.

Some innovations of that era have undergone many mutations to arrive as omnipresent elements of a 21st century supermarket. When you pick up a packet of Jell-O next time, cast your mind back a few hundred years – it originated from a Renaissance man’s idea of colouring gelatin in many hues. On the other hand, several of the dishes which were highly popular in the 16th century continue to be made in Italian kitchens today with only minor modifications. The Renaissance still echoes in many a Tuscan dish that has become world-famous, like the Ribollita, Minestrone and Tripe.

Florence was at the heart of the artistic rebirth, and played an equally central role in the culinary revival. The first cooking academy of the Renaissance era, Compagna del Paiolo, or the Kettle Company, was located here. Today, Renaissance cooking is taught as a course in Good Tastes of Tuscany, a cookery course conducted at the stately Villa Pandolfini, a mere 10-minute drive from Florence. Participants at these very special cookery classes learn how to make a complete meal, from appetizer to dessert, and can carry a bit of the Golden Age of Italy back home with them.

For those of you who want to set the clock back and set a Renaissance table, here’s a menu to try out.

Before we sign off, here’s the Good Tastes of Tuscan Team wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and A Bright and Prosperous New Year !