The Tuscan cuisine, synonymous of genuineness, is a good example of Mediterranean kitchen in which olive oil is 'reigning' over everything, exalting the tastes without blunting them. Thanks to it every dish becomes a rich course, above all if accompanied by the superb wine of this magnificent earth.

"Pappa Toscana" it is born out of the wish to show the richness of the tuscan cuisine exalting its strong points like the wine that the sun and the favorable climate prepare for us, the 'ciccia' or the famous 'fiorentina' steak, the true 'extravergine' olive oil sought after by health-conscious people, and many other products destined to the most demanding.

The tuscan cooking is so various that it is difficult to associate it to a specific taste. But its true character is really this variety of recipes, united with the quality of the ingredients.

Many agree in definig the tuscan cooking genuine, balanced, sincere and traditional, this because it is tightly tied since always to the earth that produces its fantastic ingredients. Things are getting more complicated when one tries to identify in a more precise way which are the dishes and the prevailing tastes that characterize it: are these the beefsteaks of chianina, the beans in oil, the tripe and the florentine wattle? Or the garmugia and the lamb with olives from Lucca? Or still the pancakes of dried cod and the cacciucco Livorno style?

After reflecting a while we necessarily have to agree that the tuscan cuisine is all this and still more: the panzanella, the fettunta, the pappa with tomato, the neccis, the picis with garlic, the pecorino of Pienza, the soprassata, the finocchiona are all famous foods of which you surely will have heard of and maybe will already had the fortune to taste. And how many recipes and historical tastes of the tuscan cooking have been 'forgotten' momentarily waiting for gourmets and restaurant owners to bring them back to life? The hare in dolceforte, cooked for example with vinegar, chocolate, raisin and pine-seeds. A true delicacy.

There is not to marvel that at the beginning of the sixteenth century, with the arrival in Paris of the young Caterina de'Medici, the same french cuisine has been contaminated by ingredients and recipes from Tuscany, among which for example that "glue" that would become famous as Bechamel sauce (from the butler of Louis XIV, de Bechamél who claimed the paternity),the giblets and volatile with oranges further to the new beans imported from America, the olive oil and the art of frying.