A celebration of Tuscan vegetables

Part 2 of how sustainable is Florentine food?

“Tuscan food is so meaty, I'm really missing vegetables!” This is the chorus I inevitably hear from people visiting Florence, omnivores especially, after sampling many of the great restaurants on offer for several days. All. The. Time. And it really gets me because Tuscan food really is all about the vegetables. Tuscan cuisine is inherently sustainable. It is based on cucina povera, where locally grown seasonal vegetables and a no waste approach has formed the cuisine for centuries.

But I think where the problem lies for the many visitors who complain about this is that they are eating out and that in many trattorie and restaurants in Florence, bistecca and the meat mains are placed front and centre of the menu structure. Vegetables lay low (very low in some cases) as side dishes, and there often aren’t vegetable options to take the place of meaty mains. And when you’re eating out often (as what usually happens when you’re on holiday) it’s hard to get away from that, especially in Florence where you’ll see the same menu over and over and over again in many traditional trattorie. But in a Tuscan home, vegetables and legumes play a much larger part of the cuisine. Bistecca is only for special occasions.

In case you missed it, here is Part 1: What if there was more than bistecca?

Part 2 is a celebration of Tuscan vegetables, what to try and where to go looking for them in Florence.

Tuscany is incredibly blessed with a beautiful countryside, some of the world’s best vineyards and olive groves, everywhere you look, and flourishing with native ortaggi, vegetables, that they have been enjoying for centuries. The local cuisine is full of these. When I think of “Tuscan cuisine”, bistecca isn't actually what pops into my mind. I picture the markets, and vegetable patches, full of luscious greens, in particular wintery greens like cavolo nero, silverbeet and spinach. I think of legumes of all kinds but especially cannellini beans, chickpeas and lentils, and rows and rows of huge spiky artichoke plants, cardoons, Florentine fennel, those gorgeous, ribbed Fiorentini tomatoes, tiny, sweet, zucchini with their flowers still attached, long flat green beans called taccole and long pumpkins.

Have you ever heard of a dish being called Florentine that you probably have never seen in Florence? Like “eggs Florentine” and “Quiche Florentine”. These are French dishes, but what makes them have the name “Florentine” is the presence of spinach.

Catherine de' Medici was said to have brought over all her favourite Tuscan vegetables with her when she married the future King Henry II of France, along with her Florentine chefs. She introduced the French to all her favourite vegetables, including beans, fennel, peas, artichokes, but also olive oil and white Tuscan bread, and she was known for her love of spinach (hence the “Florentine” nickname of those spinach dishes).

These are still, for me, the base of Florentine cuisine. Think of ribollita – a hearty, thick soup made with three different types of cabbages, cannellini beans, partially pureed into a silky cream, all thickened with stale bread – or of crespelle or gnudi which are made with spinach and ricotta and served either with tomato sauce or simply sage and butter. Artichokes cooked in literally every which way, from sliced thinly and raw in salad with parmesan cheese and olive oil, or in a savoury pie, or stuffed with breadcrumbs and slowly braised, or deep fried, or in an omelette, or deep fried and in an omelette. Fagiolini alla fiorentina, a dish of green beans cooked in tomato sauce.

Tuscan food is really a great sustainable model because it is also about no waste. Offal, organs, blood and lesser cuts of meat are more common in traditional cuisine than Florence’s now famous steak. Bread is never thrown away, stale bread is reutilised in countless ways but the most common is in savoury dishes like soup – ribollita and pappa al pomodoro, a thick bread and tomato soup, are great examples where you can create a satisfying meal, with plenty to go around with seemingly nothing, just by adding bread. Panzanella salad too, where the stale bread is soaked in fresh water to revive it, then drained or squeezed and crumbled into a salad of tomatoes, cucumber and red onion, with olive oil and red wine vinegar. Old bread is even transformed into cakes, puddings, breadcrumbs, crostini. It is a vital ingredient in Tuscan cuisine.

Some of my very favourite ways vegetables are celebrated in Tuscany are through the most simple dishes of all, dishes where the perfection of the vegetable is made evident by unaltering and almost unadorning it: ripe tomatoes, maybe sliced, with a pinch of salt and a drizzle of oil, some basil (at Cibreo in the Helvetia Bristol, the completely unassuming “pomi-d’oro” dish of heirloom tomatoes with black garlic-infused olive oil is simply one of the best things you’ll ever eat; I’ve also had a beautiful dish of barely adorned sliced ox heart tomatoes at Nugolo which was so memorable). Or young, snappy artichokes, sliced as thinly as possible, plunged into a bowl of water and lemon, then drained and served with olive oil, lemon juice and shaved parmesan cheese. And one of my favourite antipasti: a basket of young, long green pods of broad beans (fava beans), placed on the table for you to un-pod yourself, so you can pop the beans into your mouth alternating with slices of pecorino cheese.

This may be unorthodox but sometimes the best way to make a feast of Tuscan vegetable dishes is to forget the antipasto-primo-secondo structure and order from all of it, asking for it to be brought out all together and shared among the table. There will always be good vegetable options among primi — entree courses which are usually pasta dishes and soups (and soup is arguably Tuscany’s best and most beloved preparation), but often there may not be a vegetarian alternative for “secondo”, the main.

The simple, unadorned seasonal dishes I mentioned above might be part of antipasto, rather than sides (contorni in Italian). There might be some seasonal fritto misto of vegetables — if it is artichoke season, or zucchini season, these are some of my favourite. If it is porcini season (late summer, early autumn) you might find fried porcini are a dish of their own (Trattoria Cammillo do this so well). Order this, too, and you might spy something on the list of contorni that are meant for sitting next to a slab of steak, but that would make a delicious addition to your feast: a plate of chickpeas or beans all’olio (with olive oil), for example, maybe even some giardiniera (pickled vegetables!) or a plate of sauteed greens. Maybe there is a tortino, which is not a small cake as its name sounds, but is a small omelette or savoury flan, usually with some kind of vegetable in it (Trattoria Sostanza’s famous tortino has deep fried artichoke wedges in it).

Insalata mista, “mixed salad”, is often very unsatisfying, an afterthought, and something entirely non Tuscan, pre-packaged even. But in some cases, you will be blown away by a salad of wild leaves and flowers (Caffe Desiderio in our old neighbourhood in Settignano does an incredible one) or a simple plate of bitter chicory (note in Tuscany this is also called radicchio but isn’t the reddish-purple one you’re thinking of, these are long, bright, slender green leaves with a distinct bitter flavour — Trattoria Sostanza (via dell Porcellana 25r) have a beautiful side dish of these, just add a splash of red wine vinegar, some olive oil and a pinch of salt, heaven). Some places also offer a selection of insalatone, “big salads,” for a relatively quick lunch and that can be just the perfect thing somewhere like I Buongustai (via dei Cerchi 15r), which is one of my favourite little restaurants smack bang in the centre of Florence. It hasn’t changed since I first started going there in 2005 and is absolutely charming and always busy with locals who know about this hidden gem.

And I haven’t even gotten to the restaurants where vegetable dishes truly take centre stage, but if you want to change things up, there are more and more of these in Florence too for vegetarians and vegans. I will point out though that these restaurants are not offering traditional Tuscan fare, so if you are after those, I’d keep going to the regular trattorie and do what I suggested above. These, though, may just tick the boxes for you when you just need a bit of a change in the meal options.

Here are my picks for when you just want an all-vegetarian option:

• Brac, a tiny oasis off one of the most bustling streets in Florence, this is a vegetarian cafe slash illustrated bookshop with a quiet little courtyard and bar. I love their salads, they also have interesting vegan dishes too.

• 5 e Cinque is one of my favourite spots, it’s all organic and vegetarian but it is actually Ligurian-owned and so rather than Tuscan food here you can actually get one of the best Ligurian specialties ever invented: focaccia di recco, an impossibly thin dough baked with a soft Ligurian cheese in the middle.

• Il Carduccio, a little organic, biodynamic vegetarian cafe not far from 5 e Cinque, open from breakfast to aperitivo hour — (a good spot if the regular caffe e cornetto isn’t your thing), they are also a produce shop if you want to just pick something up to cook at home and they do juices and smoothies.

• Bistrot Santa Rosa isn’t technically vegetarian but it is pescatarian and you’ll find a really interesting, modern menu of seasonal vegetables and local seafood here at lunch and dinner. It’s a great summer spot with its huge garden, too.

I was recently interviewed for this Bon Appetit article on the changing Florentine attitude towards fish and pescatarian options. I think this quote from food critic Aldo Fiordelli sums up what happens in Florence’s unique situation:

“Florence is really sensitive to tourism, in a good way. When tourism drops, restaurateurs look for new ways to stay relevant to Florentines. That spirit has really led to innovation.”

And this is where I would put the vegetarian and pescatarian restaurants above, too. These are made for locals looking for something different. I’m happy to see this change so much over the years but, as I proposed in Part 1, I wonder if some of the traditional trattorie could keep up with the trend and offer more of those wonderful vegetable-forward dishes that form the basis of Tuscan cuisine. It seems there is something really missing here.

Have you tried these or had experiences enjoying vegetables in Florentine restaurants? Please share in the comments!