Pitti Taste, the Florentine Food Fair you might want to attend next year
and 8 Italian food producers to bookmark
Last October I read Katherine May’s Wintering, and her book brought to light my desire, and urge, to live a proper winter, to rest and retreat.
In a past newsletter, I shared my intention to take these months for a personal process of wintering, healing soul and body after three heavy years when I ignored all the requests my body sent me to slow down.
I have never been happier to live a season on my own terms, to take time to actively investigate and begin to solve everything that has been burdening my daily life in the past years. Nothing serious, but when a series of aches and pains jeopardizes everyday activities and when a tenacious fatigue slows down your afternoons and the best moments with your daughter, well you want to do something. Now I am finally addressing it, or at least trying, to begin the new season of cooking classes and the demanding job of writing a new cookbook with a clearer mind and a well-rested body.
But now, without further ado, to a new letter from Tuscany, well, actually, from Florence and from a very interesting food fair you will want to attend next year.
Before jumping into today’s newsletter, I want to remind you of the next two online appointments:
After the first month of our Italian Cookbook Club, it is finally time for a Q&A with the author, Viola Buitoni. It is your chance to ask her about the book and her cooking classes, and share with everyone the recipes you cooked during this month.
This talk will be open to everyone, we will meet this SUNDAY, March 3rd at 9.00 pm CET - 3.00 pm EST - 12.00 pm PST. This is the ZOOM LINK, and I will create an open thread on Friday where you can also leave your questions for Viola. Read more about Viola’s book and two recipes from that:
March Subscribers Only Cook Along, we will meet SUNDAY, March 24th at 9.00 pm CET - 3.00 pm EST - 12.00 pm PST. We’ll make from scratch a couple of easy, Italian appetizers made with pantry staples, something you can throw together at the last minute when you have friends over for dinner: there will be a tomato paste spread and my trustworthy chickpea cake.
Paid subscribers will receive the Cook-Along Working Sheet and the link to join the Cook Along few days before the date.
Why I love food fairs
In one of my previous professional lives, I worked in a national association aiming to promote the culture of extra virgin olive oil and the olive-growing territories of Italy. On paper, it was an exciting job. I stayed there for four years, and even though I was relieved and exultant when my contract ended—it gave me the courage to pursue my dream and become a food writer and a cooking class teacher, twelve years ago!—I must admit there were aspects of that job that I enjoyed.
Thanks to the many events we organized, and to the outstanding extra virgin olive oils we got to taste and work with, I learned to appreciate this extraordinary product—both its role in the promotion of a territory and its lead in Italian gastronomy—, and I got to know a couple of producers I am still friends with. Besides this, it is on that very job that I realized I wanted to work with food and English and therefore started a blog fifteen years ago (you can read more about the event that sparked the idea of a blog in this archive posts on my blog).
What I especially enjoyed while working there was attending food fairs.
The atmosphere was buzzing with excitement, and we would bounce from one stand to the other—many of them olive oil producers from all over Italy—nibbling on olives—massive green olives with a faint coconut aroma, or tiny, brownish ones with an addictive bitter aftertaste—, smelling olive oil in tiny blue glasses as real professionals (that I was not), learning how the differences in altitude, climate, and soil would influence the taste and aroma of olive oil. And then there were the people: fun, chatty, enthusiastic olive growers who would talk about their olive groves with fondness, who would push towards you a plate with a few morsels of bread and a golden puddle of olive oil because they noticed you had skipped lunch. It was joyful, it was tiring, it was everything in between.
After that experience, whenever I have the chance to attend a food fair, I feel the same excitement: a map in my hands, my feet are restless and I feel like there isn’t enough time to taste, smell, ask, visit, hug, learn…
The first food fair I attended on my own after starting the blog was Taste, a food fair that at the time was held at Stazione Leopolda, the first train station in Florence later converted into a location for events and exhibitions. I ventured into the fair with a stack of business cards in one pocket—do you remember when it was cool to print them on Moo.com? I still have them and use them!—, a blogger pass strapped around my neck and a heavy Donna Hay book in my backpack to lend to a friend who was joining me for the day.
What I love about food fairs is how tangible the food is.
When your job consists mainly of writing about food and fostering online relationships with readers and producers, at a fair you taste and smell the food, you better understand its nuances, you shake hands with the very same people who grew, or transformed the food that is now tangling your taste buds. It is invigorating and real.
If you love food and appreciate the work that lies beneath a can of perfectly ripe tomatoes, or of a jar of golden honey, do attend a food fair, even a local one, support the producers, discover new favorites, and learn something more about the passion, dedication, and challenges that bring that food to your table.
This year there were more than 660 companies at Pitti Taste, and Tommaso and I had just one scant day to explore the many pavilions. We moved with friends from stand to stand, visiting producers we already knew and new companies we fell in love with. We tried to cover a wide variety of producers, from pasta to honey, from canned tomatoes to extra virgin olive oil. Most of them also have an international market, so you might want to check if they sell close to your home.
My friend Flavia shared her experience at Pitti Taste in a recent newsletter, too. You can read it here.
The next edition of Pitti Taste will be in 2025. It is usually held during a weekend in February. Isn’t it a great excuse to visit Florence in a quieter month, taking also the chance to explore some of the best Italian food producers, all gathered in an accessible location close to the city center and the train station? We’ll be there for sure.
Here you can also find a couple of ideas for breakfast, lunch, and gelato in Florence.
Eight producers we met and why we loved them
This is just a little taste of what you can discover at Pitti Taste. There was so much more, as tiny mindblowing capers from Lipari, gin made from the aromatics foraged in the woods of Volterra, the best buffalo milk cheeses from Maremma—which we might include in our cooking class menus—, and a creamy artichoke spread from Sardinia.
Have you ever attended a food fair? what would you be excited to taste and discover?
1. Giorgio Poeta - Le Marche
If you attended one of my cooking classes, you might have already tried Giorgio Poeta’s carato honey, obtained by aging their organic Acacia honey in virgin French oak barrels. If not, it is time for you to discover what honey is.
When you let Giorgio’s honey melt on your tongue, you are not attacked by a sickling sweetness, no, you are charmed by the aroma of seasonal flowers, dewy mornings, sun-drenched summer fields… Each honey has its own unique, evocative characteristics, aroma, and taste. Each honey has its perfect pairing, be it a young pecorino cheese, rye bread and salted butter, or a cup of herbal infusion.
You should try their already-mentioned Il Carato, or La Stella, obtained by infusing star anise in their organic acacia honey. My favorite, though, was their ivy honey, so evocative I felt like I was a five-year-old girl again, playing hide and seek in the back garden under the ivy-covered wall.
Shop online if you are in Italy or if you are in the US through Manicaretti.
2. Testa Conserve - Sicily
I discovered their canned tuna, preserved anchovies, and mackerel during the first Covid lockdown in 2020, when pantry staples became a significant part of my everyday cooking. Their canned tuna is by far THE BEST I have ever tried. It is such a great product that nothing goes to waste: the extra virgin olive oil left at the bottom of the jar becomes a dressing for a salad, or the starting point of a tomato sauce.
They have been fishermen since 1800 and probably before, located in the fishing village of Ogna, in Catania, Sicily. At Testa Conserve they are committed not to betraying their identity as fishermen and to respecting the raw materials.
Shop online in Italy and Europe, otherwise in the US they are available at Gustiamo.com.
3. De Carlo - Puglia
Recognizable for its iconic extra virgin olive oil bottles, the De Carlo company has been producing extra virgin olive oil in Puglia for five generations.
You should try their extra virgin olive oil—they are especially proud of their Torre di Mossa 100% Coratina olive oil and Felice Garibaldi 100% Ogliarola olive oil— and their preserves and pickles: eggplants, artichokes, olives, and especially their semi-dry tomatoes, the sweetest little treats. They grow everything themselves, starting from scratch.
Should you find yourself in Puglia, near Bitritto, they also organize on-farm tastings and field tours, olive oil mill visits, and outdoor picnics. Every year the last Sunday of November is an open day when people are welcome to taste the new olive oil.
Shop online for their olive oil from Italy, or find them at Eataly.
4. Casa Marrazzo - Campania
Casa Marrazzo is another iconic producer from Campania. They give value to their territory by preserving the best seasonal vegetables: the tomatoes, for example, are harvested just until late August because they turn red in September but lose flavor. Along with tomatoes, their flagship products, don’t miss their grilled peppers, which have the taste of something fresh and homemade, their organic beans and chickpeas preserved without salt, and their jams.
Shop online if you are in Italy, otherwise, they are distributed in the US by Prime Line and can be found on many online stores.
5. Azienda Agricola Maraviglia - Tuscany
This was quite a surprise. I knew the excellent extra virgin olive oil of this Tuscan farm, but I didn’t expect Miso, Tamari, and Shoyu, produced with local ingredients such as chickpeas and barley!
Already a SLOW FOOD Presidia for its award-winning Extra Virgin Olive Oil, derived from the restoration of previously abandoned ancient Tuscan groves, Agricola Maraviglia is now focusing on becoming an example for soil regeneration.
All the grains and legumes that they use to produce Miso, Tamari, and Shoyu are grown on their 6-hectare property. I ordered a supply of these products and I’m thoroughly enjoying them in my everyday cooking.
You can shop for their extra virgin olive oil and ferments online.
6. Pastificio Gentile di Gragnano - Campania
Do you know how to recognize top-quality dry pasta? A good pasta should have a pale yellow color, almost ivory, a sign that the pasta has been dried slowly, at low temperatures. Moreover, it should have a rough, porous, opaque surface, created by the extrusion technique used.
The pasta contained in the recognizable blue packets of Pastificio Gentile di Gragnano has exactly these characteristics, making it one of the best pasta I have ever tried. You’ll have a memorable meal even simply by tossing it in extra virgin olive oil.
The company, famous for its exceptional pasta, stretched its and now produces also traditional preserves, jams, baked goods, and local dairy products.
While you can buy most of their products on their e-shop if you are based in Italy, don’t despair! They also sell in the US at:
Texas - CENTRAL MARKETS
East Coast - Zabars
East Coast - DeCicco's Markets
West Coast - Erewhon Market
West Coast - Zupan's
Michigan - ZINGERMAN'S Deli & Zingermans Mail Order
7. La Fenice Marroni - Tuscany
La Fenice is a family-run organic farm in Vicchio, Mugello, specializing in the production and processing of chestnuts. Should you be in Tuscany, they organize visits to their marroneta, the chestnut woods, near Badia di Moscheta in Mugello, a lovely lunch spot, too.
What we loved: chestnuts in syrup with wild fennel flowers, dry pasta made with chestnut flour and senatore cappelli durum wheat flour (perfect for white meat sauce), and a white chocolate and chestnut spreads, plus dried chestnuts ideal for soups.
If you are based in Italy, they have an online shop.
8. Forno Brisa - Emilia Romagna
Seduced by the smell of fresh bread and coffee, we stopped at the colorful stand where Forno Brisa was displaying some of their products, from their sourdough bread to their new chocolate bar with toasted breadcrumbs. They are a bakery, a roastery, and a Specialty Coffee place. They make bread with the flour produced by their farm, and their motto is: change the world one loaf at a time.
They have been nominated the best bar/caffetteria in Italy in 2023.
Shop online if you are based in Italy for their bread, coffee, chocolate, and merch. They are located in the Bologna city center (map here), so the next time you’ll be visiting the city you know where to stop for a good coffee and a loaf of sourdough bread.
What a wonderful essay to share with us. I can't wait to go back and experience all of this delicious food. While not food fairs, I adore local food festivals. When I was last there, I attended an artichoke festival in Ramacca, Sicily, and it was like a food fair.
I think I'm going to need a new credit card 😋