L’ample and generous offer of fields, gardens, and woods combines with the first cold weather to make particularly enjoyable the spelt soup, the farinata or infarinata, as the old cookbooks say, the frantoiana soup and the mushroom soup.
But, besides enjoying them, it is nice to discover that these dishes also offer the opportunity for fascinating itineraries to discover the places and traditions that originated them; very pleasant glimpses of nature and culture, ranging from the Plain to the Lucchese 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, traveling along a quiet municipal road called “via di Sottomonte”, which crosses a gentle 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, which they call salie here and which turn red in autumn; small patches of vineyards clinging to wooden poles as was customary in the past; tiny villages such as Parezzana, San Quirico di Guamo, Massa Macinaia, with beautiful stone houses (the precious stone of Guamo, with warm shades, is extracted right here); ancient and silent parish churches; fountains with clear and light water (some purified with physical systems and not chemical) from which the Lucchese themselves draw water. But it is especially the Corte Houses that attract attention, as they offer a fascinating glimpse into 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 ears hang to dry from its façade, becomes particularly picturesque.
Corn is one of the most common 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 farinata, a soup made from vegetables and passed beans, flavored with a sauté of chopped lard, garlic, tomato and chili pepper, and during the last cooking phase, corn flour is added.
Continuing on the nearby and convenient state road no. 439 towards Pontedera, you reach the Compitese, another sweet corner of Lucchesia, just slightly rolling with hills and knolls, which preludes to the northeast side of the Pisani Mountains. This, besides the most famous Lucchese hills, is par excellence a land of olive trees and extra virgin olive oil, another great protagonist of the cuisine and soups. Characteristic places, such as Sant’Andrea, San Giusto, Colle and Pieve di Compito; oil mills, farms producing organic oil and other excellent products, greenhouses and small plantations of camellias, are explicit invitations to cultured and greedy stops. At the Compitese Social Oil Mill, in Pieve di Compito, for example, you can see the pressing phases through a modern plant, which has maintained the original cold pressing methods. A few kilometers’ walk and here, on a sunny hill, is the Alle Camelie Farm, managed by the Orsi family, offering a fragrant organic extra virgin olive oil (those who wish can also help with olive harvesting), 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 according to their consistency. Among these are also the leaves of black cabbage, which are called braschetta here, the written beans of Lucchesia, wild herbs of the hill, such as 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.
When visiting the magnificent center of Lucca, a place not to be missed is the Ancient Bottega di Prospero, on via Santa Lucia. For locals it is almost an institution: here you find cereals, dry legumes of a thousand varieties (including the typical zolfino and giallorino beans), oil and everything needed for an excellent soup.
Another specialty that is very popular in Lucchesia is the porcini mushroom soup. But the big, meaty and fragrant ones that appear among the chestnut woods of Garfagnana, a harsh and spectacular valley north of Lucca, nestled between the Apuan Alps and the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines, and carved by the course of the Serchio and a thousand other small watercourses. A world of its own, where time is not rushed and where centuries-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, passing the middle valley, slowly enter among its folds covered with woods and small clearings, where mainly spelt and corn are grown, including the “eight-row” type.
