Letter from Italy: Cuisine, infused with garlic, herbs and admiration

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/10/lucca-tuscan-cuisine-garlic-herbs

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Lovingly crushing four halves of garlic cloves on the bottom of the pan, Roberto turns to me saying: “you need to put passion into it”. Once the white triangles are glazed in a film of Tuscan oil, he places the pan on the stove. “In cooking you need to take your time,” he continues, opening a plastic container to let me taste the previously stewed spinach we bought in what used to be Lucca’s bovine market, or Foro Boario, now a weekly farmers’ market.

Since the central market within the city walls is undergoing restoration and, no doubt, gentrification, this establishment is growing in popularity. Unlike the farmers’ markets I’m accustomed to in London, here all vegetables are exclusively local and seasonal. Eyeing what seemed like a cross between a carrot and a parsnip, we are told the vegetable’s name is “priest’s beard” on account of its green shoots. The stallholder assured us they are sweet and can be grated and cooked in tomato sauce to make a pleasant dip. Roberto buys a bunch, musing on its culinary possibilities.

After adding a few drops of tomato concentrate, I’m invited to sniff the oil impregnated with garlic. Now the spinach is carefully ladled out in the pan and is used as a contorno for slices of turkey that have been marinated in oil, garlic, lemon juice and rosemary. Herbs are the most distinguishing feature of Italian regional cuisine and rosemary, sage, thyme, marjoram and nipitella (a kind of wild mint) are typically Tuscan. Roberto’s cuisine reverberates with Etruscan ancestry: wild boar, pork and game accompanied by cavolo nero, mushrooms, pulses and spelt.

As I leaf through a cookbook unlocking its tasty secrets, the author reminds us that the Maremma region is sweet and the inhabitants ‘“incredibly hospitable”. In comparison, Lucca’s mentality is walled and closed – something of an anathema to Roberto’s more open-minded Maremman roots.

What are we eating tomorrow? Orecchiette alle cime di rapa. Admittedly, orecchiette are Puglian and the dish closely resembles the Sicilian pasta du malu tempu made with broccoli, raisins and anchovies. If this name is anything to go by, the following day’s downpour gastronomically reflects the bad weather accompaniment to our lunch.

Guardian Weekly regularly publishes a Letter from one of its readers from around the world. We welcome submissions – they should focus on giving a clear sense of a place and its people. Please send them to weekly.letters@theguardian.com