After loading up on Daniele’s homemade salami, prosciutto, and olive oil, we headed to a saffron farm outside San Gimignano. We entered Casanova di Pescille, a typical 19th-century Tuscan stone farmhouse where owner Roberto Fanciullini educated us on Crocus sativus (red saffron). One of the world’s most expensive and coveted spices, saffron played a huge role in the history of the area.
When pilgrims made their way to Rome, the only road from the Florence, Siena, and Pisa area led through San Gimignano. The people of San Gimignano used saffron like currency to pay for goods or offer as gifts to kings. Today you won’t find many Tuscan recipes calling for saffron. In the Middle Ages, saffron was too expensive to eat, and it was mainly used as currency or medicine. (It’s very high in vitamin A and was used to cure eye problems.)
Roberto’s father, once the mayor of San Gimignano, was instrumental in bringing saffron production back to the region. And, like his father, Roberto is dedicated to the same task. He led us to his field where the tiny purple flowers with the valuable red stamen were at their peak. The flowers bloom only two weeks each year and must be picked by hand every morning. After harvesting a small basket of flowers, we gently removed the whole stamens and laid them on a dry cloth. (The flowers are sent to a perfumery.) The stamens were placed on a screen over a low-burning charcoal fire and dried.
We couldn’t take the saffron we picked, but we loaded up on the small bags Roberto sells in his tiny shop, plus six bottles of Vernaccia, the local wine, and headed into San Gimignano, a medieval village famous for its beautiful towers. Our lunch at Trattoria Chiribiri doubled as a lasagna lesson. “This is traditional lasagna,” Gina explained. “It’s originally from Bologna and is made with a rich ragout, fresh pasta, béchamel sauce, and Parmigiano. There is no red sauce.”
Later that evening we gathered in our kitchen at Pipistrelli for class. We sipped Vernaccia and made gnocchetti di semola, a blend of semolina flour, butter, milk, and egg yolks spread out in a pan, topped with grated Parmigiano and sage, and baked. Then we got to play with our saffron by taking turns stirring it into the simmering risotto. When it came time to eat, we sat down at a long table in the dining room and passed platters of Daniele’s salumi, pecorino cheese with local honeys and jellies, saffron risotto, poached pears, and, of course, bottles of Vino Nobile di Montepulciano.
To Market, To Market
If you are a dedicated foodie, you never miss a chance to visit a food market when you travel. It didn’t take much to get our group up and out early enough to hit the weekly Wednesday market in Siena. Our mission was to pick up fresh ingredients for the festivity of the evening: the pizza-making competition.
Once we hit the food stalls, we spread out and bought fresh burrata and scamorza cheese, anchovies, olives, prosciutto, onions—anything we could find to create a winning pie. Later that evening we met in the kitchen and made dough as we waited for Stefano Valenti, a local professional pizza maker, to show. Silly us—Stefano had arrived hours before to build the fire in the 500-year-old outdoor brick oven. The smell of burning olive and hickory wood drew us out to the courtyard, where Stefano had set up a work space.
It was a cool, almost chilly evening, and we stood around the oven and warmed ourselves with glasses of Chianti Classico. We each took turns stepping up in front of the group and rolling out the dough before topping it with our secret ingredients. Some topped their pies with fresh sage and basil plucked from our courtyard garden; others made vegetarian versions with pear and Gorgonzola. The competition intensified as Stefano pulled each pizza out of the oven. Once it was sliced, we devoured and critiqued. In the end, it was Dick’s prosciutto, caramelized onion, and red pepper pie that took first place.
The Last Supper
No trip to Italy would be complete without devoting a whole day to drinking wine. And no trip to Tuscany would be complete without exploring Montalcino. Before we hit the actual town, we stopped in for a private tour at Castello Banfi, a state-of-the-art mega producer of wine in Italy, which has also acquired ownership of producers in Chile and Australia. Up until our arrival at Banfi, we’d sampled wines at small, local enotecas.
The estate is “a constellation of single vineyards” that spans 7,100 acres. Chardonnay is the most widely planted white grape, while Brunello, the local small-berried version of Sangiovese, is the principal red variety.
After a tour of the winery, we lunched at Taverna Banfi, a marvelous restaurant overlooking the hills of Castello Banfi. Our meal was literally a pig-out: roast pork carpaccio paired with Serena Sauvignon Blanc; bean soup with Cinta Senese pork cheek and spelt paired with Mandrielle Merlot; and a pork roast fillet served with rosemary potatoes and paired with Brunello di Montalcino Sangiovese.
Thankfully we had a couple of hours to roam free in the hilltop town of Montalcino. Unlike San Gusmé, where we began our spree through Tuscany, Montalcino is a popular spot with tourists. But here’s a little secret: in mid-October, most of the people you meet on the streets are locals.
For our last class in Tuscany, we returned to the kitchen in the old mill. Gina had saved the best for last—we would be making our favorite pici pasta. There would be fried sage and porcini. We’d roast a rabbit. Wine was poured; we took our positions. “Class, I have a surprise for you,” Gina said. “Look what Daniele gave me!” She pulled a towel off a roasting pan to reveal the roast of a Chin-Chin. Now seasoned chefs, we set out to prepare our feast. It was cold and rainy outside, so we set the table in front of the fireplace and loaded it with platters of food, including the Chin-Chin coated with rosemary and sage, which we roasted in white wine, and a flan made from winter greens. We finished with a panna cotta topped with ganache.
Our group of gustatory pilgrims had been in Tuscany for a week, but we felt like locals. Our experience far outweighed our pre-trip expectations. For not only did we know how to cook Italian, we were experts at eating like Italians, too.
