Reviving art & cuisine skills in Tuscany

We are staying in Toscana about 12 kilometres from Florence with Fabiola and her delightful 94-year-old mother, a long-since retired archaeologist, who both speak excellent English, luckily for us as we speak no Italian whatsover! They share a typical Florentine countryside house on several acres of olive trees, where Fabiola has revived the ancient technique of Scagliola,  creating objects and images with a composite substance made from selenite, glue and natural pigments.

Fabiola says she's 'passionate about everything that is art, but also nature and the kitchen. "I cook traditional Tuscan and Italian dishes using products I collect in the field according to the season." This afternoon she is going to show me how to cook Fiori di zucca Tuscan style, a little mozzarella and and a dab of anchovy are placed inside the flower before it's sprinkled with flour and deep-fried. We bought the Zucchini flowers together this morning at the local market, where they were selected fastidiously for their uniform shape by the seller, 1 Euro for a kilo!! And if we get enough time we'll also make a favourite Greek dish of her's with sliced eggplants scorched over the fire before cooking with wine and plum tomatoes, I can't wait! 

When you're living on a small budget as Fabiola and her mother do, it's sensible to buy food the old ways. They don't go to the supermarket much, instead they buy the local Chianti wine from a nearby vineyard, and olive oil by litres from a neighbouring farmer. Water is scarce here - summer and winter - and only farmers with deep wells can manage to make a living all year round. So their neighbours with a well let them run a hose to water their herbs and salad vegetables over the summer. 

Fabiola says the last two years have been disastrous for Italy, the political reaction to the GFC of increasing taxes has affected small businesses and artisans, like herself, to the point where increasingly more and more are closing, leading to less and less spending money and jobs. "We are the ones carrying the burden of increased taxes, up to 70%, but it's us that kept the economy going, what did they think would happen? Of course there'll be less to spend and less work, even a pizza out is too much for us now!"

While workers and youth in Greece, Spain and Portugal have been waging general strikes and taking to the streets in their millions in opposition to a never-ending austerity onslaught, in Italy there has been relative quiescence. This is in spite of the devastating economic impact on ordinary people, with living standards falling to the level of 27 years ago, but a new political movement is spelling change...More