Tuscany and Umbria
These regions in Italy’s heartland have some of the best food products in the country. But the regions are not known for complicated dishes – the simplest food here is often the best.
Ordering a salumi plate as a starter is a good way to sample local specialties. Look for prosciutto di Norcia, a rustic version of prosciutto, often cut by hand, which comes from Norcia in Umbria – it has a flavor quite different from the prosciutto of Parma most often seen in the US. Another specialty is lardo di Colonnata, made with pork fat, cut so thin you can almost see through it. You might also see prosciutto d’oca, a type of prosciutto made from goose meat, not pork. Tuscany has a Jewish community that goes back to ancient Roman times – they were probably the originators of this local specialty.
Most of the cheese here is pecorino (sheep cheese). A mixed cheese plate will often consist of several types of pecorino – young, old, and flavored (e.g., with truffles). Farm-produced pecorino can be very good, but you won’t find the variety of different cheeses here that you would see in northern Italy.
Bruschetta, mixed toasts, are another popular starter The bread of Tuscany and Umbria is made without salt, the results of a popular rebellion against a salt tax during the Middle Ages. Despite, or perhaps because of, the relatively bland bread, the savory toppings are often quite assertively flavored. Depending on the season, you might get a choice of fresh tomatoes with olive oil, cooked white beans, cooked wild mushrooms, shaved truffles, or chopped liver. All are delicious.
Lentils, chickpeas and beans play an important role in Italian home cooking all over the country. When I was growing up in the US, these foods were always presented as flavorless soups or mushy overcooked side dishes. In Italy, these humble foods have texture and flavor – they’re a revelation, and if you see them on a restaurant menu, you shouldn’t pass up the opportunity to try them.
Although these foods are found all over Italy, Tuscans in particular are known for their love of beans. Cooked white canellini beans, dressed with the incomparable local olive oil, are almost always available on restaurant menus (sometimes listed as a starter, sometimes as a side dish).
If you’re traveling in this region during the fall or winter, you may be offered a soup made from beans and chickpeas – just the thing for a cool, damp day.
An ancient legume sometimes found on Tuscan menus is cicerchie (translated as grass peas, but there is no real English equivalent). It is usually served as part of a hearty soup.
You may also find lentil soup on the menu, often sourced from Castelluccio in Umbria. Castelluccio is famous for its infioritura during the early summer months – an almost Monet-like profusion of wild flowers growing in the lentil fields. Somebody once had the bright idea of cutting back the wildflowers, thinking that there would be more lentils. The opposite happened. Whatever the symbiotic relationship is between wildflowers and the lentil harvest, nobody has tried to disturb them since.
Castelluccio was heavily damaged by an earthquake in 2016, but the lentil farmers have soldiered on, often living in trailers to be closer to the fields. So I always try to support them when I can.
Meat-based pasta sauces are very popular in this part of Italy. You will typically see sauces made with cinghiale (wild boar) or anatra (duck), often served over pici, a type of fresh pasta made only with flour and water, without egg.
Truffles are gathered in the Sibilline Mountains that separate Umbria from the Marche. In Umbria they are called Umbrian truffles, while we in the Marche call them “ours.” Since truffle-hunters are famously circumspect about where exactly they find their marvelous mushrooms, we don’t know for sure who’s right. But they taste (and smell!) the same on both sides of the mountains.
Most of the truffles here are black, and they are at their best in the fall or winter. They are typically shaved over tagliarini, but they also appear as a topping for bruschetta, or with eggs (sometimes with creative presentations).
There is also a small harvest of white truffles – smaller than the ones from Piedmont, but pretty good nonetheless. And while they are more expensive than black truffles, the white truffles of this region are not sold for the stratospheric prices of the white truffles from Alba.
These regions in Italy’s heartland are very meat-centric. The secondi includes all kinds of pork dishes (many including cinghiale, wild boar), as well as faraona (guinea hen), quaglie (quails), piccioni (squab) and coniglio (rabbit). Veal and lamb are somewhat less common.
In Florence, if you see people lined up in front of a food truck, they’re probably waiting for lampredotti, a sandwich made of slow-cooked tripe with herbs. Tripe preparations also appear as bar snacks, where they are easily mistaken for pasta salads. Tripe is an acquired taste, which after several trials I have yet to acquire.
One dish that has become popular in recent years is bistecca Fiorentina, which despite the name is found in fine dining restaurants throughout Tuscany and Umbria. It’s what an American would call T-bone steak, traditionally made from beef raised in the val de Chiana, in Tuscany, although these days a lot of the meat comes from Spain. It is priced by the etto (100 grams), but there’s generally no mystery about the cost – the steaks generally weigh about a kilogram (2.2 pounds). So if the menu price is 5 euro per etto, the price of a steak is 50 euro. Typically, one steak is ample for two people – particularly if you accompany it with a plate of Tuscan white beans. If you are in a group having a complete meal, three or even four people can sample it.
A Fiorentina is accompanied by local olive oil and large crystal salt, and is cooked either rare or very rare. If you like your meat well done, the waiter will try to talk you out of it, and he’ll be right – this kind of steak will have the consistency of shoe leather if it’s cooked too much. If you don’t like rare meat, you should probably order something else.
Although these days many restaurants will include a fish dish on their menus, it’s not part of the traditional cuisine of the region, and you won’t find much fresh fish here unless you’re on the coast.
If you happen to find yourself in Livorno, though, you should try fish alla livornese, which is baked fish smothered in a flavorful tomato sauce. Livorno, a port city, always had a multicultural population – Jews, Armenians and Greeks all settled here. Perhaps for that reason, they were the first people in Europe to try the strange red vegetable coming from the New World – the tomato – and fell in love with it.
You won’t have much trouble finding good wine to drink in this region. Chianti and Brunello di Montalcino, both made from the Sangiovese grape, are world famous, with prices to match. Rosso di Montalcino, made from the grapes not deemed quite good enough for the pricey Brunello, can be quite a good value, as can the less well known Vino Nobile di Montepulciano.
Winemakers in this region have also planted a lot of “international” grapes (Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet France and Merlot). Red wines known as “SuperTuscans” blend these grapes with spectacular results, and prices to match. There are a lot of smaller winemakers make wines with these grapes, too – there is a lot of Merlot grown in the region around Assisi, for example. These wines are less pricey than the SuperTuscans but still very good, and offer excellent value for the money.
In northern Umbria, near the town of Montefalco, wine is made from a local grape called Sagrantino, which produces a dense red wine that takes years to mature. Rosso di Montefalco, a blend of Sagrantino and Sangiovese, is a lighter, more approachable wine.
Although Italy is not known for its fall foliage, in some autumns, when the weather conditions are right, the Sagrantino vines turn a spectacular red-orange.
Although sweet desserts are not a big part of the traditional cuisine of this region, there is a tradition of drinking sweet wine with biscotti. In a custom probably dating back to medieval times, you can dunk the biscotti into your wine glass.
In Tuscany, the sweet wine is called vin santo (holy wine) and is usually a deep golden color. In Montefalco, the wine is called passito de Sagrantino (another way of saying holy wine) and is typically red. Either are delicious.
The Marche and Abruzzo
These two provinces, on the other side of the mountains from Tuscany and Umbria, are relatively less touristed, and have some of the finest food in Italy. The Marche, along with Emilia Romagna just north, produce much of Italy’s best fruit – cherries, apricots, peaches, plums and nectarines in the warmer months; apples, pears and kiwi fruit in the cooler ones. Abruzzo, and Molise just south, produce most of the country’s wheat (major brands of dried pasta like DiCecco are produced there) as well as some surprisingly good potatoes.
Ascoli Piceno, in the southern Marche (where we currently live) are olive ascolane (fried stuffed olives) made with the very large green olives of the region, stuffed, breaded and fried. The traditional filling is minced pork, but these days there are fish and vegetarian versions as well. Stuffed olives are very labor intensive, and are hard to find outside of this region, so be sure to try them is you visit.
The Ascolani mixed fry consists of fried stuffed olives, fried zucchini strips, fried cream (I have no idea how they do this) and tiny fried lamb chops. Sometimes they add fried sage leaves, too. It’s insanely good, but you don’t want to be eating this every day.
Here is an Ascolani mixed fry we ate at home during the Covid pandemic, when restaurants were closed but some were offering takeout.
A local salumi plate might include chiasculo, a kind of fresh salami. As in Tuscany and Umbria, pecorino will predominate on the cheese plate.
On the pasta menu, in the the fall and winter, you will often find tagliolini or another thin noodle made with local black truffles, or with porcini mushrooms. Another local specialty is pasta all’ascolana, tagliolini with tuna and green olives, dressed a light tomato sauce.
The province of Teramo, in Abruzzo, has a surprising local pasta specialty-something that looks a lot like spaghetti and meatballs. There are some differences from what often appears on an American menu. The pasta used is often the very thin pasta known as chitarrini. And the meatballs are very small, – about an inch in diameter. But in this region, and this region only, this is an authentic Italian dish.
You will also find in this region various baked pastas that Americans group under the name lasagna, which appear here under local names like vincisgrassi. You can usually figure out what it is by reading the menu descriptions. These dishes are a bit heavy to my taste.
For secondi, meat eaters will find a lot on offer. Pork, lamb and beef often come from local farms, as well as chicken, quail and rabbit. (Veal is somewhat less common here.) Many restaurants will proudly announce which of their dishes are kilometro zero (locally sourced).
Locally-raised lamb is really popular here. In the Marche, lamb tends to be eaten really young – lamb chops sold here are the tiniest I’ve ever seen. In Abruzzo, lamb is sold a little older, and is often served in the form of spiedini (cubed lamb on skewers). We had these wonderful breaded and fried lamb chops in Rome, but they are very common also in Le Marche.
San Benedetto del Tronto, in the southern Marche, has one of of the largest commercial fish markets in Italy, supplying the entire central coast not just with Adriatic seafood but also with products from the coast of southern Italy and even from the Atlantic. So you will find a lot of seafood restaurants here, especially along the coast.
Seafood appetizers are a great way to sample the local specialties. Local white anchovies are often served with fresh tomatoes on toast. Local mussels from Porto Novo, near Ancona, are served steamed with crusty bread. Local clams, served either steamed on their own or over pasta, are very tiny but very tasty. Fresh mazzancolle (tiger shrimp), locally raised, are a revelation to those of us who grew up on frozen shrimp. Grilled rana pescatrice (baby monkfish) are incredibly yummy. There’s also scampi, which are not shrimp but a small hard-shelled mollusk, closely related to the French langoustine, but smaller.
Along the coast, a frequent pasta specialty will be pasta al scoglio – often a tubular pasta like mezze maniche with an assortment local shellfish. Another local pasta specialty is campofilone (a local noodle) dressed with barely-cooked shrimp and lemon.
For a main dish, you can get a mixed fry (various types of fresh seafood), a mixed grill, or whole fish, baked or grilled depending on the type and your preference. Fish tends to be served simply here – sauces are rare.
In my opinion, the seafood along the Adriatic coast is some of the best I’ve ever eaten, and should not be missed if you have the opportunity to visit.
One note of caution – whole fish is priced by the etto (100 grams), and the price is based on the whole fish, including the head and tail, not just the serving size. It’s perfectly OK to ask the approximate weight of the fish before ordering. In this part of the country, you can expect to pay 40-50 euro for a whole fish that will serve two people.
Many regions in this part of Italy celebrate Carnevale, a week of feasting and party going ending just before Lent (traditionally a time of fasting in the Catholic calendar). Unlike in Venice, which throws a number of fancy-dress parties and attracts international tourists, Carnevale celebrations in the Marche and Abruzzo regions tend to be more local affairs, with people dressing up in whatever costumes suit their fancy and where “anything goes” with respect to jokes (usually in the local dialect).
In the Marche, Carnevale is also the time to eat ravioli incacciati, stuffed with gallina (stewing hen). This dish is typically served sprinkled with cinnamon and Parmesan, suggesting its origins go back to the Renaissance (when savory banquet dishes were often sprinkled with spices or sugar, then very expensive). There are also special Carnevale pastries, including frappè, (small strips of fried dough sprinkled with powdered sugar) and ravioli filled with a sweet chestnut or chocolate filling.
The red wines of this region are very good, and since they are relatively unknown tend to be very reasonably priced. Rosso Piceno is a blend of the Sangiovese and Montepulciano grapes. The Montepulciano grape is not to be confused with the wines of Montepulciano, in Tuscany, which are made from Sangiovese grapes. In Abruzzo, there’s a red wine called Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, which is made only from the Montepulciano grape. There’s a bit of a dispute right now over which winemakers get to use the Montepulciano name on their label, which ought to make this situation even more confusing than it already is.
Other red wines of the region include Rosso Conero, made around Ancona, and Lacrima di Moro d’Alba (literally, the tears of the Moor of Alba, so poetically named because the grape has a peculiar protuberance which looks like a teardrop).
White wines include Verdicchio di Castelli di Jesi and Verdicchio di Matellica, made in the central and northern Marche, and Trebbiano d’Abruzzo. There’s also a small production of red Vernaccia made around the town of Serrapetrona – sounds like a Harry Potter spell, but it’s actually pretty good.
Of particular note in this region the white wine made from the Pecorino grape. Apparently the grapes originally grew near sheep grazing areas, hence the name. The grape was rescued from near obscurity by a winemaking family in Offida, in the southern Marche, a few decades ago. These days Pecorino is pretty popular in the southern Marche and northern Abruzzo, and some is even finding its way onto the international market.
Rome and Lazio
Rome has some of the most interesting specialty foods in the country, and it would be a pity if you visited without trying some of them.
Romans have been eating artichokes at least since the Middle Ages, and they appear in an astonishing number of preparations. Carciofi alla romana features small whole artichokes, cooked and served whole in olive oil. Unlike in the US, the thick outer leaves of the artichoke are rarely eaten, but artichokes are served with their gambe (legs), which are surprisingly tasty.
Some of the best Roman specialties were developed in the historic Roman Jewish community. One such specialty is carciofi alla Giudea (artichokes Jewish style), in which an artichoke is boiled, its leaves then spread out like a flower, then lightly breaded and fried. This dish is not for the casual home cook – I once saw a recipe in a cookbook that went on for three pages – but when prepared properly, the outer leaves of the artichoke are crispy, almost like potato chips, while the heart is soft and succulent. It should not be missed.
Here’s a photo a nicely prepared artichoke, served as part of an appetizer plate alongside batter-fried baccalà.
You might also see raw artichokes, shaved very fine, served as a salad.
Another popular salad is puntarelle, baby chicory dressed with a red wine vinaigrette enriched with anchovies, a preparation which the Romans have been eating since ancient times. Somehow the saltiness of the anchovies, the tartness of the vinegar and the bitterness of the chicory makes for a very satisfying combination. This dish is available in winter and early spring.
During our most recent visit to Rome, we noticed that some restaurants have taken to adding burrata cheese (a Pugliese cheese which is similar to mozzarella, but with extra cream to this dish. Again, you wouldn’t think that soft cheese, bitter lettuce and anchovies would work well together – but they do.
If you are travelling later in the spring, you can find vignarola, a combination of fresh fava beans, fresh peas, and baby artichokes, lightly flavored with mint and served in a kind of stew.
Another widely available appetizer is fried stuffed zucchini flowers, traditionally filled with baccalà (dried salt cod). These days, you can also find the zucchini flowers stuffed with either mozzarella or ricotta cheese.
Rome is famous for its pasta dishes, and some of the most internationally well-known Italian pasta dishes actually originated here. Tonnarelli cacio e pepe features noodles tossed with local cheese and lots of black pepper. Pasta alla gricia features cheese and guanciale (a kind of bacon made from pork cheeks). Pasta alla carbonara is made with guanciale and tossed at the last minute with a raw egg, which is cooked from the heat of the pasta cooking water. And pasta all’amatriciana, from the town of Amatrice in the Appenines separating Rome from the Abruzzo, features guanciale, onions, and a light tomato sauce.
Here I am eating a wonderful plate of cacio e pepe, served in an edible cheese bowl.
Roman meat specialties include veal saltimbocca, slices of veal topped with prosciutto and fresh sage. It’s so good it practically jumps into your mouth – hence the name.
Another popular dish is lamb chops scottadito (“burn your fingers”) which are served hot off the grill.
A number of Roman specialties feature baccalà, dried salted cod, which was particularly popular in the Roman Jewish community. Observant Jews did not cook on the Sabbath, and in the absence of refrigeration they needed dishes that could be pepared a day in advance and safely eaten the next day. Batter-fried baccalà filled that need. The historic Jewish ghetto is long gone, but in that neighborhood, close to Rome’s main synagogue, you can still find many restaurants serving baccalà specialties, including delicious versions of batter-fried baccalà.
Roman cuisine is also noteworthy for its use of the “fifth quarter” (organ meats). Tripe preparations are very popular, and some restaurants devote entire sections of the menu to tripe. Another popular specialty, also found in the Marche and Abruzzo, is coratella, made with lamb liver.
Local wines include Cesanesi (a red wine) and Frascati or Montefiascone (white wines) – pleasant, easy-drinking wines.
Desserts are not a big feature of traditional Roman cuisine. Go out and have a gelato, like everyone else.
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