Cooking Schools in Tuscany

Hands-On Lessons in La Cucina Tradizionale

By Clay and Joanna Hubbs

In 1976 my wife and I worked for the year in the south of France. While our children attended French schools, we took frequent trips across the Italian border to Liguria and Tuscany, stopping in village trattoria to sample for the first time "la cucina tradizionale," the regional cooking of Italian housewives.

From village to village and region to region the variety of the dishes—in the ingredients but particularly in the preparation—was astonishing. Then of course the villages were much more isolated from one another and Italian housewives had access only to ingredients found within a small radius of their kitchens. They combined these local ingredients in special ways handed down for generations.

In Eating in Italy, Faith Heller Willinger’s authoritative guide to the gastronomic pleasures of northern Italy, the author points out that the variety in Italian cooking from one town or region to the next is due to the combination of geography, climate, and conquest. Over centuries hordes of invaders made Italy what Willinger calls a "Mediterranean melting pot" stretching from the mountains bordering Austria and Germany in the north to the sunny African islands of the south.

The overall extent to which traditional Italian cooking has suffered with the coming of rapid transportation and communication is a matter of debate. But thanks to the efforts of Willinger and others—most notably the "Slow Food" association, www.slowfood.it (see our interview with the Slow Food in Italy founder), with headquarters in the northern province of Piedmonte—who are tenaciously tracking down those who have clung to (and rediscovered) the old ways of producing and preparing food and wine, it’s now possible for even the short-time visitor not only to taste the various foods of the past but learn to prepare them.

To locate the schools that specialize in teaching the art of traditional Tuscan cooking we consulted Willinger, a New Yorker who has lived in Florence for more than 20 years and whose cookbook, Red, White, and Greens, gets almost daily use in our own kitchen.

From Willinger’s recommendations we chose three schools to visit: the Capezzana Wine and Culinary Center, on the estate of Count Ugo Contini Bonaccossi in the Carmignano, a wine area west of Florence; Judy Witts’ Divina Cucina program, run since 1988 from her apartment overlooking the central food market in Florence, and La Bottega del 30 Cooking School, associated with the famous restaurant of the same name, located in the heart of the Chianti east of Siena.

The three schools and the teachers are very different, but their goals are the same: to impart the ancient culinary techniques of the women cooks of Tuscany following local recipes. The cooking is done by the students themselves in traditional Tuscan kitchens using fresh local ingredients which the students have helped to select.

Tenuta di Capezzana Wine and Culinary Center

The Capezzana Wine and Culinary Center is located in an imposing Medici villa on an estate that has been famous for its wine and olives since the ninth century. Countess Lisa, known as one of the best home cooks in Tuscany, has for the past five years used the estate’s kitchen and facilities to offer a series of programs designed especially for food professionals, skilled cooks, and those involved with food and wine.

More than a cooking school, the Center, in which all the family participates, offers an introduction to Tuscan life. After a first night at the Hotel Principe in Florence, the 5-day program begins in the traditional kitchens of the estate with a morning cooking class, lunch, and hands-on pizza and focaccia cooking using a wood oven.

The second day is devoted to tasting and pairing wines with food under the guidance of winemaster Nicholas Belfrage. Dinner is at a local restaurant. The third day starts with a shopping trip to Florence’s Sant’ Ambrosio market where students select for themselves what they will prepare for dinner. Lunch is at Florence’s top restaurant for traditional cooking, Cibreo. On day four students visit local artisans-- bakers, butchers, chocolate makers, etc.—before another hands-on cooking session in the Capezzana kitchen.

Day five is taken up with an exploration of the Chianti and its wines, tasting local cheeses and salamis at wineries, and buying meats, fruits, and vegetables for the farewell dinner with the Contini Bonaccossi family. The elaborate farewell banquet is prepared by a guest chef.

In addition to the cooking school, the Center also offers weekend wine tasting courses under the guidance of a master of wine. (The Institute of Masters of Wine is an internationally recognized body of experts on wine production and assessment.) The estate sells its own famous collection of wines and olive oil. Benedetta Contini Bonaccossi, who is in charge of sales, also can arrange stays at local farms.

A stay at Capezzana is most remarkable for the brief sense of the "Tuscan experience." Guests stay in a wing of the villa and join the warmly hospitable Bonaccossi family at meals. The lively talk is mostly of food and wines—while you enjoy "your" food and the best wines of the region.

Divina Cucina

A Tuscan experience of a different nature is to be had in Florence with the transplanted American, and Tuscan food fanatic, Judy Witts Francini. The key to Tuscan cooking is using the very best and freshest ingredients and doing as little as possible to alter their natural tastes. Judy’s "From the Market to the Table" classes consist of shopping at the Central Market, just outside her window, and bringing the ingredients directly to her kitchen for preparation and consumption.

"The problem with living in the country," says Judy, "is that everything you want may not be in perfect readiness when you want it. At the market you have a wide selection of the best."

On Mondays, Judy takes students on a walking tour of the market. They get acquainted with the raw ingredients on display at the stalls while being instructed by Judy and the vendors on what to look for to find the best quality produce. Lunch is at a local trattoria where students taste what a master cook does with the produce the students have just examined. After lunch, the walk continues--to specialty food and kitchen stores in the center of Florence.

The hands-on cooking portion of the program comes on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. With Judy as their guide, students select the best the market has to offer in planning their menu. At a local wine bar an experienced expert helps them select the wines for their meal. The pace is relaxed, with plenty of time for tasting and expert advice from the growers and vendors on the best ways to prepare their products. Then it’s on to the kitchen.

On Fridays, Judy, like the Bonaccossi family, takes her students to the Chianti Classico wine region between Florence and Siena for visits to local food purveyors, artisans, and wineries. Lunch is at a trattoria that’s part of a 250-year-old winery.

La Bottega del 30 Cooking School

Tucked away in a tiny medieval borgo dominated by a winery is one of the Chianti’s finest restaurants, La Bottega del 30. Several years ago, the charming young chef, Hélène Stoquelet, married a Tuscan, Franco Camelia, and began to study the ways of traditional Tuscan country cooking--which she has adapted and refined to such a point that the restaurant has recently received a Michelin star.

Cooking classes are held in a specially-designed kitchen apart from the restaurant. Each student has his or her own stove, work space, utensils, and ingredients. (Students keep their utensils after finishing the course.) The emphasis each day is on a separate part of the meal: Monday, antipasti; Tuesday, soups and sauces; Wednesday, fresh pastas; Thursday, meats; Friday, dessert.

After each lesson, which lasts from 10 a.m. to approximately 2 p.m., students lunch in the dining room, eating the dishes they have prepared accompanied by appropriate wines.

The ancient culinary techniques of the women of Chianti are taught in an adjoining room which reproduces exactly a traditional kitchen, complete with a wood oven for baking, a brazier, and a huge country fireplace. In the same building is a well-stocked library and videocassette collection, a wine cellar, and a museum of old farm implements and utensils used for preparing traditional Tuscan meals.

1-day lessons Monday through Friday include lunch and wine tasting. On Thursdays and Fridays there is the option of a 1-day lesson plus dinner at the restaurant; on Mondays and Wednesdays the 1-day option is a cooking class, lunch, and wine tasting followed by an excursions to the castles of the Chianti and dinner at a typical restaurant.

Having participated in sessions at all three schools, we came to two conclusions. The first is that there surely is no better way to get a sense of Tuscany, one of the most beautiful areas of Italy and richest in artistic and crafts heritage, than to immerse oneself in its culinary traditions. At the schools we attended you can almost “taste” the countryside--and meet some of the people who have maintained its traditional ways of growing and preparing food.

The second is that this brief immersion in the Tuscan experience is likely to have lasting effects. We came home with our bags packed with the olive oil from Capezzana and aged cheese from the Central Market in Florence to combine with fresh vegetables from our garden. (And of course with recipes for our favorite dishes.) When the supply runs out—and it all too quickly will—we’ll find a way to replace it.

CLAY HUBBS is Transitions Abroad‘s founder, editor, and publisher. JOANNA HUBBS is Professor of Russian Cultural History at Hampshire College and the author of "Mother Russia" (soon to be available in Japanese!).