The wide and generous offering of fields, gardens, and woods combined with the first chills makes particularly enjoyable the spelt soup, the farinata or infarinata, as the old cookbooks say, the frantoiana soup, and the mushroom soup.
But beyond tasting them, it is also delightful to discover that these dishes offer the opportunity for fascinating itineraries exploring the places and traditions that created them; delightful glimpses of nature and culture, ranging from the Plain to the Lucchesi Hills, from the Pisani Mountains to the wild Garfagnana, inviting you to savor them enthusiastically and without haste, just like a good plate of hot, steaming soup.
From Lucca, you can, for example, head south along a peaceful municipal road called “via di Sottomonte,” which crosses a sweet and sly countryside, announced by the dizzying arches of the Nottolini aqueduct and framed by the first foothills of the Pisani Mountains. The landscape is defined by rows of white poplars, majestic alders, water willows, called “salie” here, which turn red in autumn; patches of vineyards clinging to wooden poles as was customary once; tiny villages like Parezzana, San Quirico di Guamo, Massa Macinaia, with beautiful stone houses (the prized stone of Guamo, with warm shades, is quarried right here); ancient and silent parish churches; fountains with clear and light waters (some purified by physical, not chemical, means) from which the Luccans themselves draw water. But it is mainly the Corte Houses that attract attention, as they offer a fascinating glimpse of the peasant world. One of the most characteristic is Corte Sandonnini, near Massa Macinaia, which at the end of summer, when long rows of braided corn cobs hang to dry from its facade, becomes particularly picturesque.
Corn is one of the most commonly grown crops in this area and also includes the “eight-row” or “fromenton” variety, from which a yellow flour is obtained, recommended by the most refined gourmets for the farinata, a soup based on vegetables and pureed beans, flavored with a sauté of chopped lard, garlic, tomato, and chili pepper, with corn flour added during the final cooking phase.
Continuing on the nearby and convenient state road n. 439 to Pontedera, you reach the Compitese, another sweet piece of Lucchesia, gently rolling with hills and small rises, leading to the northeast side of the Pisani Mountains. This, along with the more famous Lucchesi hills, is above all the land of olives and extra virgin olive oil, another major protagonist of the cuisine and soups. Characterful places like Sant’Andrea, San Giusto, Colle and Pieve di Compito; oil mills, farms producing organic oil and other excellent products, greenhouses and small camellia plantations, are explicit invitations to cultured and indulgent stops. At the Frantoio Sociale del Compitese, in Pieve di Compito, it is possible, for example, to see the pressing phases through a modern plant that has maintained the original cold-pressing methods. A few kilometers’ walk and there is, on a sunny hill, the Azienda Agricola Alle Camelie, run by the Orsi family, which offers a fragrant organic extra virgin (those who wish can also lend a hand in the olive harvest), beautiful ancient camellias, jams, preserves, aromatic herbs, wine, and warm hospitality in the farmhouse.
The traditional recipe requires a wide variety of vegetables and aromatic herbs, which are cooked gradually based on their texture. Among these are the leaves of black cabbage, called here braschetta, the Lucchesi written beans, hill herbs like marjoram, borage, wild fennel, and fresh fennel. After about two and a half hours of cooking, the soup is ready; just add pieces of stale Tuscan bread, wood-fired, with little crust and compact crumb.
Visiting the magnificent center of Lucca, a place not to be missed is l’Antica Bottega di Prospero, on Via Santa Lucia. For locals, it is almost an institution: here you can find cereals, dried legumes of a thousand varieties (including the typical zolfino and giallorino beans), oil, and everything needed for an excellent soup.
Another specialty popular in Lucchesia is the porcini mushroom soup. But the large, meaty, and fragrant ones, which sprout among the chestnut woods of Garfagnana, a rugged and spectacular valley north of Lucca, nestled between the Apuan Alps and the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines, carved by the Serchio river and a thousand other small watercourses. A world unto itself, where time does not rush and where century-old customs and traditions survive. To realize this, you can take from Lucca the State Road 12 or the Provincial Ludovica, which run parallel to the banks of the Serchio and, after passing the mid-valley, slowly venture into its folds covered with woods and small clearings, where mainly spelt and corn, including the “eight-row” type, are grown.
