Piero's Ribollita

Dear Readers,

First of all, let me introduce myself, my name is Peter from Florence, as they call me in the States and I think that Marta has already mentioned me a couple of times.

Today I want to write about one of most famous soups in Tuscany, ribollita.

There are two steps before the soup becomes ribollita. First you make minestrone, then bread soup, and finally ribollita. This is a typical winter soup since in this season we can get all the winter vegetables we need for it.( I planted the cavolo nero, black cabbage, in September and it's ready now.) 

First of all you must have a big pot for the minestrone because you need to put in a lot vegetables. The"must" for the ribollita is cavolo nero. I think it can be found in the States as well in some speciality shops. If you don't have cavolo nero, kale would be fine. Here is a list of the vegetables you need - cavolo nero or kale, cabbage, cannellini beans, one small carrot, (if you put a lot of carrots the minestrone will taste sweet), a stalk of celery,( too much celery would give it a strong bitter taste), potatoes, and spinach.

Wash the vegetables and chop them up, fill a large pot with everything and add cold water up

to two fingers from the brim, salt it and boil for about two hours. Put the cannellini beans in

some cold water and let them soak overnight. In the morning, cook the cannellini with plenty of

water adding some rosemary, one clove of garlic, a small ripe tomato and a sprinkle of olive 

oil. Once the cannellini are ready take out the garlic and rosemary and pour the bean water and cannellini in the minestrone.

Now you need some crusty, rustic bread.. better if 2 or 3 days old and not fresh daily bread.

Slice the bread and put it in a large, wide pot and cover  it with some minestrone, add more slices of bread and keep on until everything is finished. Let it soak for about one hour. This stage is called "minestra  di pane". Before eating, put some good olive oil over it. If there is a lot left over, don't panic. Refrigerate what's left. When you feel like eating it again, put what you think would be the right serving for as many as you are in the family in a pot and boil it until steaming hot . This will be the ribollita; the word "ribollita" in Italian means

re-boiled or boiled again. While cooking stir the bottom of the pot with a wooden spoon so

that it does not stick to the bottom. Put it into the plates, add some good olive oil and buon

appetito!

If  you are able to get from your butcher a ham shank usually once that the ham is finished they

throw it away, put it together with the minestrone and then let me know how it tasted.

This was a typical farmer's dish in the winter. Farmers baked their own bread in those times,

I am going back 50 or 60 years as I remember it.

I have some relatives who own a huge farm just after Arezzo and I used to go there for a month

in the summer or winter so I know first hand what farmers used to eat in those times.

They were baking their own bread every two weeks. I was shocked at the amount they were

baking but they were two families living together, 3 women and 9 men!

Everywhere in Italy farmers used to make these bread soups. They were baking their own bread and they had their own vegetables so it came as a nourishing and cheap dish. They did not have to buy anything since the flour for the bread was their own. They were growing their own wheat. Sometimes they had some bread left over from the previous weeks and they were using it to make bread soups so that nothing was wasted.

In the summer instead of making ribollita, since they did not have winter vegetables - it was not like today that you can get anything  you want in every season - they were using the stale bread to make panzanella, a cold dish. They were putting the bread in cold water, squeezing it to take the water surplus off and seasoning it with fresh chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, olive oil and vinegar with some finely chopped onions and basil.

By the way, a while ago one newspaper started printing Italian cook books, one for every region. So we started to buy them. We got to n.4 which was Tuscany recipes and I gave it a quick glance. I was horrified to see what they sold for typical recipes. They were putting everything but the proper ingredients into these classic Tuscan recipes.  It's like if somebody was putting a hat on Mona Lisa.

The trouble with me is that I have been a waiter for 40 years and I know how food is prepared.

If you want to be a good waiter you must know how every dish in your restaurant is prepared

with all the right ingredients. If you write a cook book with the classic, local recipes stick to them without adding or taking something out. These recipes have been around a very long time and they are still enjoyed by everyone today. There must be a reason why the classics endure!