Two different De Medicis - one culinary tradition!

Paul Murray

Catherine De Medici: A Biography Author: Leonie Frieda Price: R117.95 ISBN: 0753820390 Format: Softcover Pages: 544

My Tuscany: Recipes, Cuisine, Landscape Author: Lorenza de Medici Price: R215.95 Photographer: John Ferro Sims Publisher: Duncan Baird ISBN: 1844831744 Format: Softcover Pages: 160 (illustrated)

It is difficult to imagine what Leonie Frieda's biography, Catherine de Medici and Lorenza de Medici's cookbook entitled My Tuscany might have in common. Lorenza has produced some thirty cookbooks worldwide. She lives with her husband, Piero Stucchi Prinetti, and their four children at Badia a Coltibuono, one of Italy's most prestigious wine estates, an hour's drive from Florence. This most beautiful wine farm is perched high on a hill in the heart of Tuscany's chianti classico winelands, overlooking thousands of hectares of farmland.

The estate of 800 hectares was created more than a thousand years ago when it was acquired by Vallombrosian monks. It seems nothing has changed since then, suggested by the name, "Abbey of the good harvest", except that the ecclesiastics have had to make way for the laity. In a postmodern world this seems to be happening in all walks of life. The church has not been able to evade the debacle.

However, one has to be fair to current-day protectors of the land, such as the Stucchi Prenetti family, who have embraced viti- and vini-cultural and oenological developments in the area where they have been living for one and a half centuries. On occasion concerts are held in the dining hall of a once-monastery-now-home, as are cooking classes. The bill of fare is Tuscan. Cooking classes are conducted by Lorenza herself, the exponent of how to prepare simple dishes. Her My Tuscany fully reflects this. The photography by John Ferro Sims, Italian born, brings to life the mouthwatering dishes that Lorenza constructs through her narrative.

One of my favourite dishes is Crostini di fegatini (chicken-liver toast). Wilma Pezzini's book The Tuscan Cookbook has been my constant source for preparing the dish. Lorenza's has a photograph sporting the most typical of all Tuscan antipasti.

Crostini di fegatini (from Lorenza de Medici's My Tuscany).

Take 1 small onion, finely chopped, 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, 60 g unsalted butter, 6 chicken livers - cleaned, 2 anchovy fillets preserved in oil - drained and chopped, 1 tablespoon salted capers - well washed and chopped, 60 ml dry white wine, 1 tablespoon brandy, 3 tablespoons chicken stock, 18 thin slices coarse country bread, lightly toasted.

Cook the onion with the oil and half the butter on a low heat in a saucepan for about 3 minutes and then add the chicken livers, anchovy fillets and capers, and sauté on a medium heat, stirring often, for about 5 minutes, or until barely golden. Add the wine and brandy and allow to evaporate. Add the stock and cook for a couple of minutes more and then allow to cool. Remove the chicken livers and chop them finely and then return them to the saucepan with the remainder of the butter and reheat for a couple of minutes.

Spread on toast while still warm and serve immediately.

This recipe serves 6 people.

Both Wilma's and Lorenza's recipes stress that the dish should be served warm. On a warm Tuscan evening, as in the Cape, they could be served cold.

In some parts of Italy they are called bruschetta, in France they are canapés, but in Tuscany they are called crostini. It is not possible to have eaten alla toscana without having tried crostini.

Other real gems, and certainly traditional dishes, are castagnaccio, chestnut cake.

The tradition goes back hundreds of years, when flour was first made from chestnuts. The cake is best made in mid-autumn, when the chestnuts are in season. Lorenza's recipe adds aromatic rosemary and pinenuts.

I am reminded of the time I spent in Florence as a student in the cold winter of 1978/79 when the aroma of roasted chestnuts on virtually every corner was sure to warm the cockles of your heart - if they were not already warmed by one of the beautiful companions of the Italian Literature class. As students, in between classes, we used to flock around the vendor of roasted chestnuts on the Piazza del Duomo.

My Tuscany presents the reader not only with the easy-to-follow, traditional recipes, but also with nice-to-read descriptions of the history and myths associated with the Tuscan life, cookery and its people.

No visit to Florence can be complete without eating la fiorentina (Florentine beef steak). Steak houses in South Africa can sit up and take note of the age-old Florentine tradition of preparing meat. This chianina cut is from the beautiful white Chianina oxen, which are fed on the succulent sweet grass in the Val di Chiana area. These oxen are from the heart of Etruria, the ancient name for Tuscany, the home of the Etruscans.

The spirit of these people is as feisty now as then, when it had to defend its cultural and culinary heritage. Virgil's epic poem the Aeneid brings tears to the eyes as one reads of how the foreigner to the area, the Rutilian Turnus, is rightly slain by the ex-Trojan ? now Eritrean Prince ? Aeneas for committing regicide.

The heritage of Tuscan cookery remains anchored in a gastronomical tradition epitomised by Lorenza's inspirational accounts in My Tuscany, which is as Tuscan as you will get anywhere in the world.

Even classic French cuisine is directly influenced by it!

Catherine de Medici, when she married Henry II of France in 1533, transported the Tuscan cooking tradition to the French Court. Leonie Frieda's scintillating biography discusses the life of this extraordinary person.

One needs to consider that France at the time was immersed in the conventions of the Dark Ages. Consequently, it was probably not such a difficult undertaking to "modernise" the French kitchen. Catherine brought with her to the Court her own chefs and pastry cooks. Her move to France from Florence in Tuscany brought the secrets of Italian cooking to that country, foremost of which were peas, beans, artichokes, duck in orange source and onion soup.

Catherine was famous for bringing table protocol with her to the French court. In this way, Florentine style and elegance was exported from Italy for the first time. Jean Orieux wrote: "It was exactly a Florentine who reformed the antique French cooking of medieval tradition; and was reborn as the modern French cooking." The Tuscan style, added to the French cookery of the time, evolved into an international cuisine as we know it today.

I recall making the scarpetta ("little shoe") to scoop up the remaining tomato at the bottom of the pasta plate when a voice yelled at me as I was eating in an eatery as a student in Florence in 1978 - the elderly Florentine gentleman was furiously wagging his finger: "Mister, use the fork, it was invented by the Florentines!" Historically he was wrong. The Florentines brought the fork to Europe, and it was Catherine in particular who did so when she moved to France.

The traditions set by Catherine were furthered in the seventeenth century by her descendant Maria de Medici, granddaughter of Cosimo I and second wife of Henri IV King of France.

Catherine comes across as a strong person in Frieda's biography, contrary to the perceptions of critics. Her strong ability to overcome - barrenness for one - is brought out by the book. Frieda recounts her sole purpose in life, which was to ensure "the survival of her children, her dynasty and France". She resorted to superstition and began eating artichokes and chicken gizzards to produce progeny and finally gave birth to nine children, of which four later became kings and queens. "Prayers, medicine and magical potions", including "draughts of a mule's urine", ensured pregnancy, as well as "spying on the sexual antics of Henri and his mistress in order to find out what she might be doing wrong", as Anna Skea has recounted in her review of the book.

Catherine's part in the horrible St Bartholomew's Day massacre of the Huguenots is closer to home for many South Africans with Huguenot ancestry. Chapter 12, from pages 287 to 315, tell of the horrible story. Good fortune came to only a few senior Huguenots who managed to escape, each carrying with him or her "the spores to start a fresh civil war". Survivors and descendants started new lives in the Cape and many families today can claim direct lineage from those courageous people, who faced terror from a tough cookie of a queen and her family. Skea consoles the reader saying that Catherine's role in the terror was unavoidable.

Let the reader decide!

Frieda has consulted original sources, including thousands of letters left to posterity by Catherine, "one of the most influential women ever to wear a crown".

There is a huge irony about Florentine cookery. Some of it was exported to France. After the end of the Medici in Florence, as a city she was given to the House of Lorraine, the French-Austrian dynasty. Florentine cooking was influenced by French cooking, especially between 1865 and 1871 when Florence was the capital of Italy. Official dinners proposed French dishes and wines. Gradually the French tradition took root in Italy and as in many countries around the world, French culinary terms appeared, such as menu, dessert and buffet. Certain dishes that had originated in Florence, such as balsamella and crespelle, returned with new names: béchamel and crepes.

It should be emphasised that while there was certainly French influence on Italian cooking in general and on Tuscan/Florentine cooking in particular, this happened on an official level. Tuscan cooking was kept alive all the same and remains one of the most sought-after culinary delights.

Today Tuscan cooking is still simple, easy to prepare, tasty and conducive to creating great fellowship around the table.

At the same time, French cooking has maintained its international status and integrity, yet owing its existence to the same Tuscan cuisine that Catherine knew and transported with her to France, which Lorenza continues unswervingly in the tradition of her forefathers and mothers.

Floreat La Cucina Toscana!



LitNet: 07 February 2006

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