Tuscany's Traditional Dishes Are VEGAN?! Unseen Food of Italy + Animal-Free Farming!

Get ready for Italian street food made out of chickpeas, bread baked in a wood-fired oven, and a farming system that works entirely without animal manure. In this episode, I'm exploring what Tuscany has to offer. All with one mission. It's got to be traditionally plant-based. From salads that revive stale bread into an explosion of summer flavors, to pasta that is traditionally made without egg, Tuscany has a rich tradition of food without any animal products. And I'm about to see what that's all about. First up, I'm in Volterra to meet with Giulia Scappaleccia, a local cook, food writer, and expert in Italy's kitchen of the poor, la cucina povera. Giulia is taking me around some of her favorite spots to show me a popular coffee that is not made from coffee beans, as well as a local street food spot that dishes out a thin, crispy pancake made almost entirely from chickpeas. We are meeting up in a historic cafe here in Volterra to start the day the proper way, with Italian coffee. But the coffee Giulia ordered for me is not quite what you'd expect. Okay, so the coffee arrived. So we've got a normal cafe, espresso, and orzo. Tell me again, what is orzo? So orzo in Italian means barley. Barley that has been toasted and ground. So it's naturally without caffeine. It's full of minerals, and it's very good for you. Grown barley coffee. I've never tried that in my life. I've never even heard about it. But this is something you find everywhere in Italy. Everywhere. Okay, let's try the orzo. Do you do a little cheer? Orzo, coffee, cheer. Wow. It tastes like black coffee, but a little bit fainter. But also a little bit sweeter. Yes. You wrote a book just now called Cucina Povera. What is Cucina Povera about? Cucina Povera is a traditional way of eating here in Italy. Cucina Povera is eating locally, seasonally, using everything you have. So respecting the ingredients and respecting leftovers. Okay, so we started with coffee and orzo. What's our next stop? Next stop, we're going to have some street food. Fueled with an orzo and a traditional espresso, we're off to taste our first delicacy. A traditional street food that is made out of chickpeas. Okay, so we're now actually going into the kitchen to see how they make the torta di ceci. Is that how you pronounce it? Yes. Torta di ceci. Okay, let's go. The owner, Nicola, showed us how this local specialty is prepared. It all starts with a batter of chickpea flour and water, which he made a few hours earlier. He removes any residue foam because it would burn in the oven. After greasing a tray with oil and adding some of the oil to the batter, it's ready to be baked. It needs a very hot oven, 380 Celsius degrees. The temperature has to be a little bit higher on top and lower on the bottom. This bakes a perfect chickpea flour cake. In a furious spectacle, the liquid chickpea batter begins to caramelize and turns into a delicate cake. Nicola slices it up and seasons it with nothing but a bit of freshly ground pepper. Okay, let's try it. I'm so excited. So I'm going to take a little bit of the crust. It's really crunchy. I can hear it with you. So Nicola is in the back. He made it. Nicola. So good. Wow. And the roasted flavor. Yeah, and the black pepper that is very, very typical for the chickpea flour cake. Oh my god, the pepper. It's kicking in. This is, I mean, this is bonkers. It's chickpeas and water and pepper. The flavor is so intense, especially those little crusty bits. Look at that. It's like the perfect little bit of caramelization going on here. And literally the whole bit, crunch on top, crunch on the edges, crunch on the bottom, but so much flavor. Come on. Next up, we're visiting one of Giulia's favorite restaurants, Ristorante da Beppino, for a traditional cucina povera lunch. Okay, so here we have our panzanella. And I've just been with Marianna in the kitchen. She showed us how to prepare it. She explained as well, it is the ultimate cucina povera. Yes. Because you're using what you have available at home. Exactly. So stale bread and what you have in your garden. With fresh bread, it doesn't work because you have to soak the bread in water and it brings the bread back to life. Wonderful. So that's our panzanella. First one in Tuscany. Super excited. Let's tuck in. Exactly. I'm trying to get everything on one fork because I think you have to taste all the flavors together. The bread soaks up all the flavors. I don't notice that the bread doesn't have salt. When you try the bread, if you do not expect that, it's like there's something wrong with this bread. Like it's missing something and it's the salt. But since there's no salt, it dries up easily. The salt attracts humidity so the bread can get moldy. Tuscan bread doesn't get moldy. Can be rock hard, but always good to use. I can say that stale bread is the staple ingredient of Tuscan cuisine. More than pasta, more than rice, no. Stale bread. And then we have our pappa al pomodoro. Pappa al pomodoro. And you said this is a soup. Yes, a thick soup. It's a very thick soup. It's a pappa. In the name has already the sense of comfort. Pappa is something you eat with a spoon. Okay, so first time tasting pappa al pomodoro. Good spoon there with a lot of olive oil. It's so hearty. Such a safe choice wherever you are, probably in Tuscany, to always go for a pappa al pomodoro. With an entire book written about traditional Cucina Povera dishes, I wanted to see how Giulia makes her favorite comfort food from scratch. The ingredients are simple. Tomatoes, fresh basil, stale bread and a special local garlic variety. Garlic. This is a local variety of garlic. It's called aglione. Very mild garlic that won't cause problems in the digestion. And it's called also the garlic of kiss, because you can kiss someone after you have this and you're not stinking. Giulia starts by peeling the tomatoes. The easiest way for this is to score them before blanching them in boiling water for just a minute until the skin opens up like this. Once cooled down in water, the peel comes off and the tomatoes cut into pieces. Then it's time for the best kitchen tools, our hands. So I'm crushing them with my hands, because I don't want tomato sauce or tomato puree. I want bigger pieces of tomatoes with some juice. And now you're peeling the aglione and you've got one here. And she wasn't lying. This is, oh god, this is a massive piece of garlic. So that's one clove. That is one garlic clove. I mean, I have to say I love garlic, so I'm not opposed to the idea of having this as a normal sized garlic clove. The aglione will melt into the sauce, so Giulia cuts huge chunks and cooks them together with olive oil, salt, chili flakes, and the crushed tomatoes. With the sauce blipping away, it's time to rehydrate the stale bread for a few minutes in water. What you want to do is squeeze out the water and then you crumble the bread. I like to have some bigger pieces, especially the crust, because again, this gives texture to the soup. Her grandmother's secret is to add a little bit of tomato paste for richer flavor and color. Then the bread and a bit more water are mixed into the pan and stirred and cooked until the papa has beautifully thickened. But even after adding fresh basil and a generous amount of olive oil, it's not done quite yet, because the papa al pomodoro needs to rest. I was really amazed that in Tuscany, you find chestnuts being used in a lot of dishes. It's a very common ingredient. Actually, chestnut flour is even more common than chestnuts, because chestnuts have a very short season, while chestnut flour can be used throughout winter, and it's common in many dishes. You mentioned the dish, um, castagnaccio? Castagnaccio. Castagnaccio. What is castagnaccio? Castagnaccio is a chestnut flour cake. It was born as a vegan and gluten-free and sugar-free dish. Let's make a castagnaccio? Let's make it. Wonderful. First, the flour is mixed with a little bit of water. I haven't done anything for the papa al pomodoro, so now I'm finally being put to work here. Then more water and oil is mixed in to form a thin batter. Castagnaccio is seasoned with a little bit of salt and flavored with pine nuts, chunky pieces of walnut, and raisins that have been soaked in vinsanto, a sweet dessert wine. And now we pour everything into this pan. It's my grandmother's pan, quite old, but it works perfectly. It's seasoned. It has stood the test of time. Oil in first. And we have to be generous, because the castagnaccio is almost frying in the olive oil, so you have to have the olive oil coming over the castagnaccio when you pour it. Okay, and the olive oil is working as well. Look at that! Finally, it's topped with extra walnuts, pine nuts, and some rosemary. Into the oven? Yes. Hot oven? Off we go. All right. Bye-bye. Okay, that gives us time to taste the popcorn? Yes, let's go. Wow, that is comfort on a different level. Okay, and our castagnaccio is done. It's the first time in my life that I'm trying this. I've never had any dessert with chestnut flour, so I'm super, super excited, and the ingredients are completely incredible to me. Wow, there's so many things going on. It's wonderful. It's so, it's so, so nice. Because it's so moist. It's not a dry cake. Why did we invent flour that is made gluten-free when we have things like that? I really don't understand because this is so tasty. This is a good secret of Tuscany. No more. I'm sold. I'm a fan. Chestnut flour, here we go. After my first taste of Tuscany, I'm heading deeper into the countryside to find an answer to a question that's always been on my mind. So we've arrived at Ipini, which is here behind me, and it's set in this idyllic location in the middle of the Tuscan hills. And here we're going to learn about veganic farming, which is a farming system that works entirely without using animal manure. Meet Lahiri, the head chef of Agri Villa Ipini. Lahiri is going to show me how to cook one of Tuscany's most traditional dishes. But before we hit the stoves, he's taking me on a tour to prove that nature's abundance is all around us. So we're now in the herb garden here. Behind us are loads and loads of herbs. This one is called the salt plant, because it's able to extract the minerals and the salt from the soil. And then he puts the salt in his leaves. So you should definitely try it. You can dry these and use a little bit like salt. So much. Salty and tangy. But despite salty and tangy leaves, there are tons of herbs. And once they blossom, the flowers, you guessed it, are edible. Never tried a rosemary flower. This is it. Okay. Floral rosemary. It takes away the woodiness. And we have some beautiful flowers from the sage. The name salvia comes from the Roman save. So basically, it's the plant that saves us. Let's try a sage flower. Just do like this. You pick literally the... The bud. And it tastes gently like sage. It's quite juicy. Yeah. It's spicy. It gives me a little bit of ginger. Yes. This garden is not only packed with herbs. These are pomegranate shrubs. And that means that each of these blossoms will eventually grow into a single fruit. Here we've got calendula, which is planted amongst other produce to keep pests away. And you've probably seen this before in a slightly different form. This is the beautiful flower of the artichoke. It attracts so many pollinators and bees and wild bees. That's why we don't pick all the artichoke. So next up, we've had nastrutium. Nastrutium. Yes, it's quite peppery and sweet at the same time. It's so amazing. You've got... You eat a flower and you have so many associations. But that's the thing about food, right? Once you're not limited to what you know from a supermarket, suddenly you have way more possibilities. Okay, so we're now heading into the veg patch with Lahiri. Look at that. Look at that behind me. It's opening up here. Okay, we have some beautiful ripe tomatoes. Tomatoes which they ripe on the plant. So and then all the nutritious things are going to be inside. The flavor is more complex. Because usually the people that harvest tomato to sell, they pick it when it's green. And then you ripen, let's say, in the fridge or however, not on the plants. You can see that it's organic because there is some little insect that took the benefit as well to eat. I'm just craving to taste a ripe tomato straight off the plant. Look, oh, bright red. And also you smell the vine. Yeah, it's quite beautiful. Oh, it looks juicy. That is juicy. It should be salty as well and savory. That is savory. It's everything. It's very easy to make a beautiful food with this type of produce. Because all you need is olive oil and maybe a bit of salt. The magic lies in how it's grown. Oh, you can taste that. This is so good. After seeing the tomatoes courgettes with their flowers and more herbs like green and purple basil, it was time to reveal one of the secrets of veganic farming. So this one is wild spinach. We're just gonna cut it up a little bit. This one as well is acacia. They fix nitrogen into the ground. Here we have some old borage which has gone pretty much into seeds. So and then now the pollinators, they don't really need this one anymore. So at the moment, we're cutting up wild plants all over the garden here and all over the patch. And Lahiri is making a liquid manure out of that. So not to use animal manure. After you collected the wild plants, you go around you and then you can just water it up. Now we're gonna leave it for about three, four, five days. I'm gonna leave it for the yeast and the bacteria to start to ferment it. This is the finished product. You can see there is going on a type of fermentation. So that's what happened. The fermentation, the yeast, the bacteria, they're extracting the nutrients and then they release it into the water. Soon I'm gonna take the solids, the leaves away and then we're gonna dilute it into a ratio of 1 to 10 or 1 to 20 depending how strong it is. And then we're gonna water it whenever we water our plants and it's gonna give back lots of nutrients. Yeah, it's starting to smell a little bit and we have some charcoal here. So if you want, I'm gonna show you. So this charcoal is gonna act as a smell, bad smell reduction. It's gonna basically absorb all the smell but also it's gonna absorb all the nutrients. Every single piece of charcoal is gonna become like a microbe or bacteria hotel. So this one is the compost area. Twice a day the kitchen staff is coming and is pouring the kitchen waste and we put some wood chips in between just to make sure that the fermentation is aerobic, so with oxygen. We also put the charcoal, the biochar, of course to neutralize the smell but also to be charged of bacteria, to be charged of nutrients. Whenever we're gonna use the compost, it's gonna have this biochar as well. It's gonna be so beneficial to the soil. Okay, I think we got enough ingredients so far. I could go on and on explaining all that we have but I think now we can start cooking. So we're gonna make the sauce for a pici all'aglione. Pici all'aglione. But it's a different type of pici. I put my twist in it and I did a nettle pici. That's the nettle powder. That's the nettle powder, which is the nettle that I harvested locally before we went to flowers. Nettle, it's really a superfood. It's got seven times the vitamin C of oranges. It's got the same amount of calcium like cheese and it's got more protein than soy, than soybean, yeah. So in 100 grams of dry nettles, it's got 40% of protein. 40%? So 100 grams of dry nettle is basically 40 grams of protein. What a leaf! Basically, a herb. It's a wild plant. A wild plant. Okay, let's make the pici all'aglione with nettle. As the name suggests, the star of the show is of course aglione, a giant garlic variety that is much sweeter and milder in taste than normal garlic. It first gets blended together with olive oil, water and salt to make a smooth sauce. In a moment reminiscent of Goodfellas, Lahiri also sliced some of the garlic for extra texture and flavor and sauteed it with a little olive oil in a pan. Add the blended sauce, cook it down and soon you're left with an incredibly fragrant cream of aglione. And then it's time for the fresh tomatoes. They too get chopped up and blended with nothing else but a bit of water. After straining them, a little bit of passata is added to intensify the color and flavor before it's also poured into the pan. A tomato sauce blipping away on its own is often a clue that pasta is not far away. And today, it's made fresh. Okay, so now we're gonna start the making of a peachy all'ortica with nettle. So green, peachy. First, a little bit of hot water is mixed into the nettle powder to draw the color. Then it's added to a mixture of semi-integrale, which is a light whole wheat flour and durum wheat flour along with some olive oil. Under constant mixing, more and more warm water is added until the dough begins to take shape and finally looks like this. So yeah, our dough is ready. As you can see, it's quite soft. Looks like it's elastic, it's perfect. To let the gluten develop, it's coated with a bit of oil and refrigerated for an hour before the next step. Tomatoes are acidic, so a little bit of sugar is added to the sauce to balance it out. Then it's time to crack on with the peachy. A piece of the dough is rolled out into a flat disc, then cut into thick ribbons. And now we're gonna start the process, which here in Tuscany, they call it a pichai. So it's basically making the shape of the peachy. By pinching the ribbons and rolling it over the surface, a thick pasta begins to take shape. So pinch them. And then roll it. They don't look as smooth as yours. I mean, peachy is quite rustic. Cut in half. Half. And then we've made our pichai. One by one, the fresh pichai fill the tray. A testament that, as so often with the cooking of the poor, the food is more affordable in price because of the investment of time and labor, as well as the lack of expensive ingredients. Pichai is naturally egg-free. So it doesn't contain fresh egg, as many fresh pasta do, because it's from Cucina Povera. Finally, the pichai are boiled until they just begin to feel al dente, before they are gently mixed together with the sauce and finish cooking in the pan. I think we are done. The sauce is quite thick. Our pichai, they are cooked. And now we can plate it up and we can taste it. With the bounty from the garden all laid out, it's showtime for the many different edible flowers. Okay, and we've finished our pichai a la Leone. I'm so excited. So, garnish with flowers that we picked minutes ago in the garden. Allora, go on, grab a fork. Oh, look at that. So much sauce. It's so rich. Here we go. So, look at the pichai. We've got flowers on there. Loads of sauce. And it's so simple. It's so simple, but the first thing you get is the flowers. Because they are right on top. You get a little hint of nice edible flowers, but it's quite subtle. And then that tomato sauce is coming in. Fresh tomatoes picked moments ago in the garden. I have to say, that experience of seeing you pick them, walk with you in the garden, seeing you prepare the tomatoes, that's all part of eating this dish now. When you eat it, you remember all of it. You remember all of it. So, a simple dish becomes quite complex and, you know, memorable. It's so nice. There's so much garlic in there, but it just adds a really nice underlay. Happy? Very good. Exactly. Ah, what a dish. And the nettle, it's not overpowering at all. Not at all. Just in the background. But what still amazes me about that is the 40% protein. On a plant-based diet, that is really valuable. Because obviously, looking at this dish, there's no legumes added. There's nothing. There's no protein apart from the flour, which has a natural source of protein. But by adding nettle, out of all things, something that grows wild here, you're adding protein to that dish. So, it makes it so, so valuable. It's just before 6 a.m., early start, because I'm heading to a local bakery. There's a lot to be said about Tuscan bread, because it's sort of infamous for not having any salt. And I am heading to a local bakery to see how they make Tuscan bread and learn what that's all about. Here we go. I arrived at I Seminanti, and they are a slow food bakery here in Tuscany, near San Miniato. And they are a seed-to-bread bakery. So, they grow their own wheat, then they mill it, and then they bake bread with it. And I'm going to see how they make Tuscan bread. This is Emanuele, one of two brothers who run I Seminanti. Today, he's making three different loaves with three different grains, all using a similar process that starts with water, salt, flour, and a sourdough starter. It's quite famous among the ancient grains, because it's a grain that has a lot of flavour. This sourdough starter is made with water, 2 grams of salt, and sourdough starter. The grain is divided into flour, sourdough starter, and crusca. The crusca has the outermost part, the flour has the innermost part. And the whole wheat is defined by this part here, which is called sourdough starter. It stays with the sourdough starter for 12 hours. In this way, the fibre, which is the largest part that remains between the teeth, is made available to digestion. And in this way, we give a bread rich in nutrients, mineral salts, enzymes, and everything that is also needed for digestion. But if Tuscan bread is infamous for being made without salt, then why did Emanuele add any? After mixing it for just a few minutes, the dough is transferred to large buckets for the first fermentation. With the first batch out of the way, Emanuele cracked on with two more doughs. One made with the ancient gentilrosso wheat, the other made with the oldest cereal in the world, farro monococco, also known as einkorn. Then it's time to light the oven, because this one needs some time to heat up. But what you see here is in fact only half the oven. The rest of the design lies hidden underneath. So Emanuele made us a little breakfast here, because we started really early at 6am. He just sliced some bread, toasted it on the stones here, which are really hot. Grazie mille. Okay, and then he has a caciofi, so an artichoke spread on top. Let's try that warm bread, literally toasted here in the wood oven. That is a perfect breakfast, I don't need more. After the first fermentation, the dough is tipped out onto the bench, where it is weighed and shaped by hand. What looks so easy under Emanuele's confident moves is really the product of years of experience. The shaped sourdough is then placed into the proving baskets for the final fermentation. So Emanuele just prepared the oven again, and he put all of the coals inside into the bottom bit. So now the oven is being heated from the bottom. And then the cecina went in, so the torta di ceci, and four trays of those are in the oven now, and in three minutes they're already done. Okay, so the cecina just came out of the oven, and it's freshly here, so we're just gonna try a piece. Grazie. Freshly made cecina. Has this nice smoky flavor from the oven on top. Yeah, come on. And then it's finally time to bake the bread. After a quick dusting of the peel, the bread is tipped out, scored, and transported into the depth of the oven. Once all the breads are tucked inside, Emanuele closes the door. And the smile. But that's not quite enough. It's sealed with some raw dough to trap in all of the heat and create the perfect environment for wood oven baked breads. Okay, it is time. The bread is ready, so behind me steam is coming out of the oven. He's opening it now. After brushing off the excess flour and any of the ashes, the warm bread is packed up, ready to go straight to today's farmer's market. But in the meantime, I'm in for another treat. As I learned at the beginning of this Tuscany trip, panzanella is one of the traditional cucina povera dishes, making use of what's available right now. Today that is cucumber, onion, fresh basil, tomatoes, and stale bread that's been rehydrated in water and crumbled into the salad. Season it with salt, vinegar, and olive oil, and... I'm following Emanuele outside now, because we are having the panzanella for lunch outside in the garden. The sun is out. What a day. But before we can tuck into the panzanella, it's time to taste today's fresh bread. Okay, so we've waited long enough. The bread is ready. And here we go. You can just smell the grain. It's so wonderful. We've seen it from start to finish. So he said you don't need the salt because the flavor is in the grain. And it's true. It is really true. I have to say, although you don't say salt, you don't miss it. Maybe because he added a little bit, but you don't miss it at all. So, wonderful. So the table is set behind me. We're going to have the panzanella now with the fresh bread next to it. I can't wait. Lunch with the family. This is so exciting. That was the end of my first episode here in Tuscany, but I've got a second episode coming up. So stay tuned for classics like ribollita, Tuscan street food, and locally made pasta. See you soon.