The Tuscan Year

A few months ago I reviewed two books on Tuscan life and cuisine, `Ciao Italia in Tuscany' by PBS series host Mary Ann Esposito and `Simply Tuscan' by New York City restaurant chef / owner and curio shop impresario Pino Luongo. Neither book impressed me as giving a genuine picture of life in Tuscany, especially as it was before EuroAmerican homogenization took over. This book, `The Tuscan Year', Life and Food in an Italian Valley' by textile artist and Tuscan resident Elizabeth Romer is the real deal. The venue is an isolated valley in the southeastern corner of Tuscany, genuinely rural in that it is several dozen miles from the large cities of Florence and Sienna. The feeling the author gives about this lovely environment reminds me of the admittedly artificial feeling of lyric isolation from the cares of the world in the very obscure movie `The Hidden Valley' based in an isolated Swiss valley community surrounded by the ravages of the 30 years war. The major text of the book is in twelve chapters, one for each month of the year, beginning with January and ending with December. There are very few illustrations, limited to a few simple line drawings opening each chapter. The text is divided roughly equally between culinary information and recipes and non-culinary tales of the domestic, agricultural, and animal husbandry. The highest praise I can give this book is that it has a strong kinship in the style and quality of its content to Patience Gray's great culinary journal `Honey from a Weed' which I have been attempting to accurately review for over six months now. The main characters of the story are not the author and her family, but a native Tuscan family of Orlando and Silvana Cerotti "of the remote mountain area between Cortona and Castiglion Fiorentino. They have a single son and they run their estate and live their lives in a traditional manner. They do this from choice not necessity. Their lives are bounded by the land, which they use to its fullest extent, and in this way they are virtually self-sufficient. Their property is extensive, stretching over 400 hectares, and includes acres of forest and arable land, streams, vineyards, many small houses and their own imposing fattoria with its surrounding walled kitchen garden, olive groves, chapel and outbuildings." The most enheartening part of this story is the fact that the Cerotti's and their family and farm hands have been successful in maintaining a lifestyle that has the feel of dating back to the Renaissance, if not earlier. This is not a story of an agricultural estate in irreversable decline, although the family has cut back on some farm resources such as the herd of pigs. Rather than maintaining 100 swine, the family buys a pig each year and has it slaughtered and butchered by a professional travelling butcher. All the `charcuterie' is done on the premises by the butcher or the family. The hams are cured by Silvana and hung to dry in the attic. Orlando takes care of sausage mak

Don't expect this book to be another "Year in Provence" or travel in the Italian wilderness book. Elizabeth Romer documents the reasons the Tuscans -- and their predecessors -- eat like they do, plant like they do and live like they do. It carries us back to Roman times and tries to explain why Tuscans consider somone from the next valley to be a foreigner. A fascinating read for more than just cooks.

If you read cookbooks like novels, and sit at your kitchen table with five or so of them sprayed across its expanse, reading histories behind recipes and searching for ideas -- this book is for you. My vast collection of varied and sundry cookbooks is improved exponentially with the addition of "The Tuscan Year." Filled with month-by-month details of family, farm, food, and life -- this book reads more like a regional family historical novel interspersed with vivid descriptions of food and enchantingly detailed recipes ("one teacup of the best green olive oil," "a dessert spoon of tomato concentrate," "one hen pheasant"...). If you appreciate Italy for its food, regions, and the joyful, serious people who have made their varied and delicious cuisines beloved around the world, then this book will be one of your favorites year after year.

I am sorry to say, but none of the current crop of Tuscan books a la Mayes and the others comes close to "The Tuscan Year". I knew right away that I was busy with a classic : classic in the sense of authentic cooking, but also the writing itself. In short, the very best record of the fabled Tuscan [or Italian for that matter] gusto. The honesty, simplicity, joy and sheer hard work shines through in every page and each recipe is a celebration of this life. PRIMA!

This is a wonderful book that recreates the author's chronicles of a year in Tuscany. It's delightful to read and it brought back memories of the way my Italian grandmother used to cook. The recipes are authentic and I refer to them frequently.