Pino Luongo - A Tuscan in the Kitchen: Recipes and Tales from My Home

M y region is Tuscany. I was born in Tuscany and my family is basically Tuscan. My father came from the Neapolitan region, but thats another story.

Tuscany is in the middle of Italy. It is shaped roughly like a triangle, with the Tyrrhenian Sea on one side and the Appennini Mountains on the other. On one side of the triangle, the smooth, soft hills of Siena and Arezzo slope toward the piano, which are the flatlands of Maremma. Within this triangle, there are nine beautiful cities.

At one time Tuscany was a totally wild region that for two thousand yearsfrom the Etruscans to the Tuscanswas treated with such love and care that it became a paradise. The small rural communities as much as the big cities have set the rhythm of Tuscan life.

Even as Tuscany looks to the future, it holds on to whatever is good from the past. We feel as if we belong to a special part of the world where each generation is connected to all the ones that went before in a continuous, harmonious line.

The distinctive Tuscan character was formed by traditions, and the essence of the land has not been changed by invaders, natural disasters, or outside influences. Tuscans have their own language, their own ways of suffering, their own ways of believing, which have produced a body of literature and art that is among the greatest in Europe. Giotto was a Tuscan, as were Donatello, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and of course Dante.

Probably whatever I say about Tuscany cant be proved or documented. How can I transfer to paper the way I feel when I see a certain Tuscan landscape? How can I tell about what I hear and smell when I go back home? There are no explanations. Tuscany is part of me; its the place where I belong.

My relationship with the food of Tuscany is very simple: it was the food of my childhood. I grew up loving the countryside of Tuscan cuisine and the way people used the land. Tuscany is a region of peasants who have always worked the land, growing their own vegetables, keeping their own animals. They have never been a rich people, but they have always found inventive ways to cook something wonderful with the things they had.

We say that if you grow up, as I did, in a family in which every resource has to be used 100 percent, you become an imaginative cook so that, one day, if your life improveseven if you can afford to buy expensive thingsyou still have the ability to create something special from the few ingredients you have.

Tuscan cuisine gives you this chance. It encourages you to adapt and improve on the original, because Tuscan food has never become an institution. It has always been open to the personal efforts and imagination that make better-tasting dishes. In Tuscany we dont want chefs cooking for uswe want Mamma! If all the mammas of Tuscany were instructed to cook a certain dish, no two would come out the same. Tuscans use only natural products, with all their peculiarities, so its impossible for everything to be cooked the same way.

And Tuscans dont believe it should be. Our regional cookbook has a cover and a first page, but the last page hasnt been written yet. We keep at it, and were still open to many different experiences.

Most cookbooks give exact amounts of this and that, but I never learned about timing and quantitiesI did everything by instinct. If you make a mistake in tablespoons, its not going to hurt you. You dont need a prescription for cooking food; youre the person in charge. Dont be afraid to follow your feelings. Be flexible, be creativeabandon your inhibitions and have fun. When it looks good and feels right, youll know it. Trust yourselfyou know better than to stuff anchovies into a profiterole. One day youll have the pleasure of making something so good youll know its a triumph that came from your imagination and not some rule or formula. As in love, there are no rules for cooking. Everything should be done with feeling.

In Tuscany the kitchen is the center of the home, and food is a big part of the important events in life. Cooking shouldnt be an ordeal. It should be the pleasure of creating something you want to share with the people you care most about. You dont have to feel impotent when you open the refrigerator and all you see are tomatoes, some butter, eggs, maybe some leftover green beans, and a piece of cheese. Saut the beans in some good olive oil, put in the eggs with some salt and pepper, sprinkle the whole thing with a bit of cheese, and youll have what we call a frittata. Serve this with fresh country bread and chilled sliced tomatoes, and sit down with a friend and a bottle of wine. If you keep the meal simple and spontaneous, it leaves room for more complicated experiences.