Get thee behind me Roma!

Firenze

With the museums I wanted to see today closed, I decided to have a food day. Walking through Firenze is ever pleasant, but passing piazza Ambrosio to find a traditional outdoor market is perfect, yes perfect.

My favourite snack in Italy is a handful of grape tomatoes with a ball of fresh buffalo mozzarella. It's as though someone stole a piece of cloud from the heavens and added salt. Walking about with these two miracles of modern man in your hands is like holding yin and yang. With the syrupy insides of each alternating from bite to bite, it's indecent to please yourself so much in public.

I came upon a salumeria in the market with not only the highest quality of boucheries I've seen yet, but also everything is unrefrigerated and cut by hand. It makes the process slow, methodical, and more worthwhile, with each meaty slice unique.

The Porchetta, oh the porchetta. The skin perfectly crisp with the flavour of christmas potatoes; the loin, tender with the juices of pesto and rosemary, tied with string and left on a board never to be refrigerated and thus dry up or lose its texture.

Sopressata, sweet sopressata: with every humble flavour and texture the boiled down head of a pig can offer. These guys, somehow manage to stuff fresh herbs in between the layers of yummy perfection.

I think it's worthy to note here that everything you know about Italian cured meats is wrong. At least, depending on which region you're in one word can mean many things, and it certainly doesn't mean the same thing from region to region. Never use a meat's name as you know it. You will be laughed at. Sopressata is different in Tuscany than it is anywhere else, and I'm pretty sure that it's what Roman's call coppa "alla romana" but I'm sure that Italy would disagree.

Pranzo was at a local Trattoria that was once known for local Toscana cuisine. I had roast potatoes, (roasted in fat), and porchina (thinly sliced pork chops), again the most tender I have ever had. These guys know pork! Tuscany, land of the happy hog, wondrous Wilbur.


Earlier this week I spent much of my time with my friend Renato who was eager to come along with me to Firenze. He has a friend that does all sorts of really neat sculptures here and he enjoys staying at his workshop. We spent the better part of his stay biking around together, to lookout points, on the river, and so forth, exchanging in Italian and English.

The thing about Firenze is that it's lost in time in the most spectacularly functional way. Here, men in tweed suits ride old singlespeeds, the only excuse for dieting is poverty, shoes are always taken to a cobbler, and with a couple beers, the church steps are the ultimate Sunday hangout spot.

I miei giorni sono passato in giro sul ciottolo, guardando gli fabbricati chi paiono come opere d'arte, qualche volte mi siedo sul lungo dal fiuve.

My mornings are spent in a spacious sunny garden, with espresso and a book. Cats scurry around playing in what seems like a paradise. I'm being housed by the loveliest of people, Serenella and her three beautiful daughters. Every evening they sit down for multicourse meals together, sharing stories, talking about what they're learning at school and enjoying their mother's cooking. They invite me to join them on the daily, and how could I resist, considering that Serenella's "quick" home cooking is the best I've had yet in all of Italy: a true Toscana mama, with a taste for simple delicious traditional foods. I had my first Pappa al pomodoro here, my first biscotti alla toscana, my first saltinbocca alla romana, my first true pesto alla genovese, and my first truly peaceful week since I arrived in Italy.