This blog appeared first on 4 April 2020 on my website. Italy was in full lockdown, and I had the luxury of more time to cook.

Cavolo nero in full bloom. I hope the leaves aren’t too tough.

FRIDAY AFTERNOON
I have a good idea of the ingredients — broth from cooking biroldo (a blood sausage which I can get at my village shop, but not the broth), beans, cavolo nero, some odori (onion, carrot, celery) and cornmeal. Since I’d never made it at home, I decide to check a couple of my local cookbooks.

The Recipes of Marilena: Flavours of the Garfagnana

I bought Le Ricette di Marilena many years ago from the inimitable Andrea Bertucci at the Vecchio Mulino.

Andrea & I at his Osteria Vecchio Mulino, Castelnuovo di Garfagnana (photo: Jeff Blaine)

Marilena is from Fosciandora, which is on the southern edge of the Garfagnana. When I think of that area, I think of Marina Donati, the weaver to whom I take guests on my Tastes & Textiles tours. Marina is a courageous woman who decided to preserve the traditional woven patterns of the Garfagnana instead of creating her own. She sold her scarves, tableware, rugs and handbags at weekly markets, packing and unpacking her van and setting up her stall single-handedly.

Besides these rugs, Marina weaves table linens and scarves. They make great gifts which easily fit in a suitcase.

Marilena wants me to throw dried beans pre-soaked overnight, finely chopped cavolo nero, squashed garlic, potato and onion both finely chopped, a stock cube (which I refuse to use) and salt and pepper into a pot of water and boil for two hours. Halfway through I’m to add some pork stock. After two hours I whisk in the cornmeal and stir continuously for 40 minutes and serve hot, seasoned with a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil, or leave to get cold. The leftovers can be cut into little squares and fried.

Of the pig, one knows, you throw away nothing; One eats it all, cooked properly. When you’ve cooked biroldo, if you have it in mind to make a special dish, take that broth, beans, potatoes, odori, lots of cavolo nero…

Mauro and a cecina pan. He explains why the copper is beaten. I thought it was decorative, but it has a function.

Besides being the cook, Jimmi is the sales rep for his and Mauro’s business.

Bruno, who we usually meet at his metato (chestnut drying hut), is mincing pork back fat with onions, carrots, celery and parsley.

Andrea in his squash patch explains that it’s pointless trying to get rid of the weeds. You’ll never win. Concentrate instead on making your plants healthy and they’ll reward you.

Rosanna, knife in hand, teaches us how to make her zuppa using Andrea’s vegetables and wild leaves we’ve foraged around the farm.

SUNDAY MORNING
I simmer the beans with a crushed clove of garlic and a few sage leaves.

Fagiolo Cera

SUNDAY LATE AFTERNOON
I unhook my copper paiolo from next to the fireplace. The paiolo has a slightly rounded bottom and a sturdy iron handle by which you hang it over the fire. It’s ideal for making soups, stews, polenta and infarinata. I bought mine in one of my favourite shops in Lucca in Via San Paolino, nearly opposite the church that the Puccini family frequented. It’s stuffed full of every type of home, kitchen and agricultural implement you can imagine, mostly made of metal, but not all.

Sautéing odori in my paiolo. Untinned copper is not toxic, but don’t leave food in it overnight.

I chop the onion, carrot and celery and sauté it in olive oil. I add cavolo nero and potato, the beans and their liquid, some strips of skin from prosciutto (which Renato, Eugenia’s husband gave me Saturday morning) and more water and start them simmering.

Next time I’m going to chop the potato and cavolo nero finer.

Formenton is the Garfagnana word for ‘corn’. It has eight rows (otto file) of kernels around the cob.

Ercolano owes his name to Beato Ercolano, a 15th-century Franciscan friar who founded what is now Agriturismo Ai Frati, where we stay during the Tastes & Textiles: Hanging by a Thread tour. Most people in the Garfagnana have nicknames, but Ercolano is so kind and good, the essence of a saintly being, that he is always called by his real name, Ercolano.

Saintly Ercolano. You can almost see a halo floating over his head.

Formenton otto file flour coming off the millstone (photo: John Morrison)

I stir with a spurtle, a turned wooden stick used by the Scots when making porridge. In reality, polenta is also a porridge, a mush or pap which can be made from many types of flour. In the Garfagnana we also make polenta dolce (sweet porridge) from chestnut flour. As I stir, I think about my dear friend Sarah who gave me the spurtle. I’ve known her for decades, from her days as administrator for the Academy of Ancient Music, then tai chi lessons together which led her to study the Alexander Technique which she now teaches in Edinburgh.

Polenta is traditionally stirred with a stick, although not usually so elegantly turned.

I learned from Alvaro Ferrari, master polentaio (polenta-maker) of the Garfagnana when I first arrived here, that 40 minutes is not long enough to adequately cook our whole-grain formenton otto file cornmeal. It requires a minimum of 1 hour, and he adds, if your guests are late, all the better. But the best secret I learned from him is that you don’t have to stir your polenta continuously. Just drape a damp cloth over the top of the pot, cover it with a lid and simmer as slowly as possible for an hour. No stirring! You can get on with preparing the rest of the meal. Whether this method would work with a stainless steel pan, I can’t say. When cooked in copper, it doesn’t stick to the bottom.

Here’s Alvaro (on left) on my very first tour in 2005. Hanging behind him are both yellow and red varieties of the formenton. (Photo: Marion Edwards)

I hang my covered paiolo on the hook in the fireplace, making sure the cloth isn’t hanging down the sides (my cloth is singed and reminds me not to make that mistake again).

I’m so lucky to have a fireplace in the kitchen all kitted out with the chain and hook for cooking. I wish nonna were here to show me how she did it.

SUNDAY EVENING
I open a bottle of Alessandro Bravi’s Garfagnina Rosso wine. Alessandro makes it below Camporgiano, north of Castelnuovo di Garfagnana, the administrative capital of the Garfagnana. His sangiovese grapes grow in vineyards even higher in the Garfagnana and don’t ripen until the end of October or early November. Alessandro likes a challenge.

Alessandro explains that at the cantina he has exactly the right micro-climate for the pinot nero grape. His wine isn’t burgundy, but it’s excellent all the same.

During courses and tours we go to his cantina (winery) to tour the vineyards and cellar and eat dinner cooked by his dad Stefano.

Erica Jarman invites you on inspiring culinary tours of life behind the scenes that you won't find in any guidebook — get to know the food artisans and craftspeople of Tuscany and Sardinia. Come join me and my Italian friends and dip into a lifestyle where lunch is more important than business. Find out more at Sapori e Saperi Adventures and follow Erica’s own adventures on her blog. Slow Travel Tours is an affiliation of small-group tour operators who offer personalized trips in Italy, France and other European countries.