How to eat - and drink - like a Tuscan

A re-run of a piece I wrote a few years ago following a trip to Tuscany which reminded me how differently Italians approach food and wine from how we would eat and drink in an Italian restaurant here or at home.

My hosts were a local family called the Corsinis who own a traditional bakery, wine bar and restaurant in the hill town of Castel del Piano, south-east of Siena. All the meals we had with them were without choice. Food came to the table and was served to everyone from large platters, something that is typically Tuscan. I’ve had the same sort of meals when I’ve eaten with winemakers.

The food is simple and rustic, relying on good ingredients rather than great culinary skill. The Tuscans don’t like their food messed about. There is usually a soup based on beans or chickpeas, even in high summer, which may be the first or second course. Always some kind of pasta, often homemade. A main meat course (they prefer meat to fish) which can be followed by various vegetable dishes, a cheese course and a (usually rather creamy or boozy) dessert. Tuscans have a sweet tooth.

At lunchtime, instead of a hot main course there may be a platter of home-cured meats (salumi) such as salami, ham and lardo (finely sliced, aromatized back fat) and preserved vegetables such as cipolle (pickled onions) or carciofi (globe artichokes). But they wouldn't miss out on their pasta.

The one dinner we had together at the Aiuole, just out of town, consisted of what seemed like two very large, light gnocchi, but were in fact known as fiocco di neve or snowflakes - one based on ricotta and spinach ( I think - it could have been chard), the other on ricotta and potato. That was followed by chickpea soup, a pasta dish with aubergine, a dish of roast suckling pig served with a delicious cauliflower dish that was souffl-like in texture (sformato), courgette (zucchini) frittata, roast peppers stuffed with veal and mint and stuffed radicchio. (The number of vegetable side dishes was unusual and due to the fact, I suspect, that we had a vegetarian at the table but everyone else benefited too). Finally there was a bomba (a rounded sponge cake with an ice cream filling) and cantucci (little dipping biscuits) which were served with vin santo, a favourite Tuscan way to finish a meal (apart from a glass of grappa, of course)

Apart from the sweet wine, the same wine, a Montecucco, was served right the way through the meal, along with copious quantities of San Pellegrino (sparkling mineral water). It was light and refreshing, not there in any way to attract attention on its own account, simply as an accompaniment to the food.

It is typically Tuscan for red wine to do duty for white in this way. They drink white occasionally but mainly with seafood and it is far more common to take a red right through the meal like this. (The following day we drank a Morellino di Scansano with a plate of linguine and prawns, for example).

If different wines are served, as they are if you visit a winemaker or a more expensive restaurant, they are likely to be different grades of red - a young, unoaked wine with the pasta and soup, a riserva with the meat and an older, more prized vintage with a second meat course or with the cheese. (Tuscans cheerfully ignore the ‘red wine doesn’t go with cheese’ theory - but they don’t go in for very strong, French-style washed rind cheeses or blues).

Even if they’re 13% ABV or over, traditional Tuscan reds, which are mainly based on Sangiovese, are much lighter in style than those from comparable growing areas. Their dryness and high levels of acidity can make them taste lean on their own but are the factors that make them work so well with the sort of dishes with which you would more commonly drink a white.

It’s noticeable that the more modern fruit-driven Tuscan reds such as those from the Maremma region don’t work so well with the simple flavours of the local food and can frequently overwhelm it. It accounts for the enduring popularity of basic Chianti despite the fact that it sometimes fails to justify its price tag.

Casa Corsini is at 46, Corso Nasini, Castel del Piano. (Tel: 0564 957308)
Albergo Ristorante Aiuole (Tel: 0564 967300)

Italian beer and food matching at Tozi

Sophie Atherton reports on the introduction of a new range of 'birra artigianale' (craft beer) at ciccetti restaurant, Tozi.

If you hear the words 'Italian beer' and immediately think of Peroni you need a wake-up call. The country now has in excess of 700 breweries, but in the UK Italian beer is apparently rather hard to find. What it clearly needs is a leg up from the Italian restaurant industry, which in turn needs someone to lead the way.

I may have found just the place, Tozi Restaurant and Bar, a stone's throw from Victoria Station. I was invited there a few weeks ago to taste a range of beers recently added to its drinks list, paired with a selection of 'cicchetti' dishes (the Venetian answer to tapas I'm told) from its regular menu.

It's always pleasing to encounter a restaurant prepared to embrace beer and food matching, even more so if it will be available to all and not just as a one-off to woo beer writers. The pairings were put together by importers, Beers from Italy and Italian beer sommelier Jacopo Mazzeo with input from Tozi head chef Maurilio Molteni - whose pedigree includes a stint at Shoreditch House as well as working with Antonio Carluccio.

All the beers used were from the same brewery, Birrificio Opperbacco, of Notaresco, Abruzzo an area better known for wines than for beer.

The first pairing was 4punto7 (4.7%) with two dishes, a salty but delicious calamari and roast fennel, carrots, beans and spelt salad. The persistent floral and bready aroma of the beer was almost a meal in itself. Less sweet than its fragrance suggested but with a floral quality and gentle dry finish, even after the first sip I was already mentally ordering another. Sadly the salty coating of the calamari overwhelmed the beer (despite the obvious intention that it would complement the calamari's sweetness and refresh the palate after the batter) but happily it worked much more harmoniously with the salad where the strong herbal character of the dish met the flavour of the beer as an equal.

Next came a beer called Tripping Flowers (6.1%), its bottle evoking the 1960s and hinting at the reason for its name. A saison, a style of beer now typified by a certain kind of yeast rather than its origins as a strong spring brew kept to quench the thirst of farm labourers in Belgian Wallonia, it was flavoured not just with hops but also roses and almonds. Snappily dry, as a good saison should be, there were notes of honey and lemon and an aftertaste of light-coloured dried fruits. Once paired with a heavenly crab ravioli with tomato and basil its floral flavours came through along with a zesty, hoppy tang in a match that proved it's possible to effectively pair beer with tomato sauce based dishes.

This point was emphatically brought home by the next pairing. Eipiei (6.3%) - pronounced IPA! - with aubergine parmigiana. The beer is Opperbacca's take on a US-style West Coast IPA, full of zesty, grapefruity hops and packing quite a bitter punch. The bitterness perfectly complemented the chargrilled skin of the aubergine and the beer became light and moussey, refreshing the palate ready for the next rich cheesy, tomatoey mouthful. It was this point in the meal where I decided I could just live at Tozi and never go home.

One always has to come down from a peak though and although L' Una Rossa (6.4%) smelled of cherries and tasted of roses it couldn't save me from the pungent aroma of black truffle on top of a buffalo ricotta ravioli. At the risk of sounding a churlish philistine the smell reminded me of laundry day and the pairing didn't do the beer justice, reducing it to bubblegum and pear drops. With pork cheeks, cavolo nero and mashed potato though the beer sang and revealed spicy aniseed and coriander flavours.

The delight of Testun al Barolo, a semi hard cow and goat cheese wrapped in a layer of nebbiolo grape husks, paired with a strong IPA called Triplipa (7.8% above) in a match which tasted like a sophisticated cheese and pineapple stick, and a finale of Dieci e lode (10%) a hefty quadruple style brew full of plummy, liquorice flavours matched with a coffee and amaretto bonet (a dessert from Piedmont) effectively erased my moment of black truffle-loathing and left me with a strong desire to return to Tozi with all my friends. Which is, coincidentally, how its name translates.

Sophie Atherton is a freelance journalist and Beer Sommelier with her own blog A FemALE view on beer. She ate at Tozi as a guest of importers Beers from Italy.

The best match for caviar - vodka or champagne?

For those of you who are lucky enough to be serving caviar this New Year's Eve I just dug this post I wrote back in 2009 out of the archives. Is champagne or vodka the better pairing? (I must confess the *research* was fun ...)

"One of the highlights of my recent New York trip was an extraordinary caviar tasting at Petrossian where I had a chance to taste for the first time the new farm-reared caviars that are coming out of the US and other countries such as Israel and China.

Petrossian, which was founded in France in 1920, now sources 98% of the caviar it sells from farmed sturgeon and may shortly be selling 100% if no quotas are issued for caviar from the Caspian sea in 2010. (None were given in 2009)

I tasted six caviars selected by Michel Emery of Petrossian with a American food writer David Rosengarten, the wine editor of Saveur. They were served simply with triangles of hot toast made from sweet, slightly milky-tasting bread and interestingly from chilled jars rather than ones put on ice which Emery explains makes the caviar too cold.

With them we tried Petrossian’s own vodka, a super-smooth, five times distilled spirit, two champagnes and, as a wild card, a Rolling Rock beer (David having a theory that beer is as refreshing a partner for caviar as champagne)

1) Royal Transmontanus (California) $69 per 30g
This American caviar had a good flavour but the least definition - fine bubbles that almost created the sensation of a smooth caviar spread in the mouth.

2) Alverta President (California) $107 per 30g
A caviar from an older fish (8 years as opposed to the average 6 years for the Transmontanus) resulting in larger eggs with more definition. Elegant with a savoury depth - David Rosengarten’s favourite.

3) Tsar Imperial Siberian (Florida) $139 per 30g
From the Baeri species of sturgeon, I personally found this a stronger, saltier more obviously ‘fishy’ tasting caviar with more structure and body than the others we tasted. It appealed to me less than the other caviars.

4) Royal Ossetra (Israel) $189 for 30g
Very fine-textured, delicate, slightly nutty with well-defined eggs. Very much what you’d expect from top caviar.

5) Tsar Imperial Ossetra (China) $208 for 30g
For me, given its origin, the most fascinating caviar of the tasting with a very fine texture and subtle, complex flavour. Second only to the Royal Sevruga below.

6) Royal Sevruga (Iran) $364 for 30g
A rare sample of aged wild caviar from the Caspian sea. (It came from the 2008 harvest - none is available in 2009) Smaller, less clearly defined eggs than the Ossetra but with an incredibly intense marine flavour. Wonderful.

The pairings
Having always thought that champagne is the ideal textural match for caviar (bubbles on eggs) I actually found the very pure, fine Petrossian vodka which was served in frozen glass flutes consistently showed off the individual flavours and textures of each caviar. Not least, I think, because of vodka’s mouth-coating oiliness which combined with its serving temperature sets the palate up perfectly

What I hadn’t thought about before was the issue of residual sugar in champagne which proved quite intrusive in the first one we tried - a Nicolas Feuillatte Blanc de Blancs 1998, less so with a lighter, crisper non-vintage champagne from Paul Goerg. The effect was less noticeable with toast but the caviars still tended to make the champagne taste slightly sweet and in the case of the Royal Ossetra (4) a little metallic. Better matches would have probably been a no-dosage champagne like Laurent-Perrier Ultra Brut or a weightier vintage champagne like Krug.

The beers too (we deliberately tried two very light ones - a Becks and a Rolling Rock) proved problematic. The latter was better though the only spot-on match I thought was with the saltier Tsar Imperial (3). But even that was very much a case of ‘you could but why would you?’. Caviar being as rare and expensive as it is it seems perverse to accompany it with anything else but a high quality drink. (It’s also been suggested to me that fine sake works well which I’d very much like to try)

All in all an utterly fascinating (and let’s face it, wildly indulgent) tasting, particularly for the chance to try this new generation of caviars which represent the future for this rare, luxury product.

Petrossian is at 182 West 58th Street (58th St. at 7th Ave.) New York, NY 10019 Tel: 212-245-2214

Photo (not of the original event) © gkrphoto

10 of the best champagne buys under £20

Champagne is once again a Christmas battleground between the supermarkets though I haven’t spotted quite so many £8 and £9 bottles this year (I suspect we may see a few next week). Best avoided anyway: here’s the best of what’s available under £20 this weekend. Note prices may have changed by the time you read this.

The Co-operative Les Pionniers NV £16.99 STAR BUY
Excellent elegant fizz that delivers year after year. Came out top in the recent Which? tasting. If you buy any 4 bottles (or multiples of 4 bottle) you get 15% off. Maximum purchase 12 bottles. Does not apply in Scotland. The vintage is great too at £24.99

Tesco Finest Premier Cru champagne £84 per case (£14 a bottle)
Tesco’s well-publicised problems this year means that they’re extra eager to keep their customers happy. Again a good price for a reliable own brand. Good party fizz

Asda Extra Special Premier Cru Champagne Brut £14
A similar deal from Asda. Further proof that own label champagne is a bargain.

Heidsieck Monopole Blue Top Brut £16 Asda and Sainsbury’s
A good option if you don’t want a supermarket name on your champagne label. Looks the part.

Heidsieck Monopole 2009 Gold Top £19.99 if you buy any six bottles from Majestic
Part of Majestic’s current 33% off champagne offer which finishes on Monday 14th. I’m sure it will be replaced by some other deal but vintage fizz for under £20 is worth snapping up if you’re near a store

Sainsbury’s Blanc de Blancs £15
I always like this 100% chardonnay champagne and this is a good price

Waitrose Blanc de Blancs £19.99
Another winner in the latest Which? report only narrowly pipped by Les Pionniers (above)

Bredon Brut £14.99 Waitrose
Although it irritates me that this is billed as a £12 reduction (from a price that was way too high in the first place) at £14.99 it delivers. A richer style that works well with food

Veuve Monsigny champagne brut £10.99 Aldi
This has picked up loads of gongs including a silver medal from Decanter. Never been quite so impressed but at this price, you can't complain.

Oudinot Brut in magnum on offer at £40 at M & S
This M & S own label fizz just squeaks in at the equivalent of £20 a bottle - cheap for a magnum. Or buy the standard size bottle for £15.