Staff Trip to Tuscany: La Cucina Povera

One of the places I really wanted to take our staff to was the town Radda in Chianti. It’s one of the small, hilltop villages in the heart of Chianti Classico that looks like it’s straight out of a picture book, yet it is authentically alive with locals who live and work there. The town is perched at the top of a hill with a panoramic view of vineyards on every side. A long, winding cobblestone road leads you on foot through the center of town, which takes about 10 minutes to walk at a slow pace.

I remember when the town held a dinner for all the Backroads guides who participated in the staff ride through Tuscany back in 2015. There were 350 of us, so they lined the cobblestone street from one end of town to the other with picnic tables. The few restaurants in town, with the help of some experienced nonnas “Italian grandmothers” came together to make it happen. They were wizards at orchestrating a dinner of that magnitude. Large jugs of Chianti lined the tables and mounds of hot pasta filled every plate. Nobody left hungry that night!

The restaurant at the far end of town, Bar Dante, played a huge role in the success of that dinner. Chef Fabrizio, native of Radda, and his British wife Carolyn, are incredible hosts. They have created a restaurant for both locals and visitors alike. Delicious and authentic Tuscan food is served with a detailed explanation of the history and importance behind it. I knew we had to take our staff there!

Carolyn brought us platters of bruschetta, ribollita and papà al pomodoro soup while Fabrizio talked to us about cucina povera, “peasant/poor cuisine”. This simple way of cooking using few ingredients and letting nothing go to waste was once a necessity for farmers who had very little but needed sustenance for their long days of work.

Fabrizio remembers growing up when there was very little food to go around and his mother and grandmother had to make do with what they had. Meat was a delicacy and served sparingly. Most people grew gardens so many of the dishes were vegetarian based. The other staple was unsalted Tuscan bread. Stale bread was often used to soak up the broth in soups and bulk them up. It’s also soaked it water and wrung out to use in the adored panzanella salad, with vinegar, cucumbers onions and tomatoes. Then there are the many forms of bruschetta (pronounced brus-ket-ah) topped with almost whatever else you have on hand. This is why you would never see an Italian with any sense throwing out bread; it can always be repurposed.

Carolyn recently published a memoir called Life Behind the Bar: A Tuscan Inquisition. The hilarious and heartwarming story tells the tale of her experience living as a foreigner in this small corner of Tuscany for the past 30 years. She describes the hardships and triumphs of living with and cooking for an Italian man with high expectations and few provisions. Out of necessity, she learned the art of cucina povera, using whatever vegetables were growing in the garden and aromatic herbs that grow willingly, like rosemary, thyme and oregano.

Today these dishes are printed in recipe books and served at restaurants. The nonnas of that time would have never guessed that their way of cooking for mere survival would become such a sensation. Once you taste these dishes, you understand how less is actually better. With just a few good ingredients, the flavors really shine through.

We didn’t even realize it until talking with Fabrizio, but we already feature some traditional cucina povera recipes at PRIMI! One of my favorites is Aglio e Olio, a simple pasta dish with garlic and olive oil. I asked Jarrod if I could share our recipe here and he found that very funny because according to him it is “so simple, it can hardly be called a recipe.” Regardless, I still want to share it with you all, so here it is! Here’s to bringing back La cucina povera!