Food is my joy and my nemesis. I watch TV cookery shows obsessively (and have even appeared on a few). My weighty collection of cookbooks recently snapped a shelf from my kitchen wall, and I follow restaurants like some follow the FTSE index. A stint on
Celebrity Fit Club may have helped me to shed 25kg (56lb), but it didn’t curb my fascination with food.
Three generations of Italian-American relatives nourished me, and one day I hope to open a cookery school in our home region of Abruzzo. Meanwhile, my mission is to cook and eat my way across Italy: I’ve been truffle snuffling in Alba, pizza spinning in Naples, and cannoli rolling in Catania. Tuscany is the one region that seemed to escape my taste buds. So when the chef Giancarlo Caldesi, the star of Return to Tuscany on BBC Two, invited me to take the “Chiantishire Challenge”, how could I refuse?
Two friends — sisters Wendy and Carol — joined me at La Cucina Caldesi in Torita di Siena. Wendy is married to my cohort on BBC London radio, Danny Baker, who boasts that if everyone had his wife’s passion for real food, then “shares in fast food would be worth less than Millwall FC”. She is a self-taught cook, and has always dreamt of going on a course to give her skills a boost. Her goal? “I want the confidence to cook without a book in front of me.”
The gift of good grub runs in the family. Carol Beasley cooks for 2,000 pupils every day at Brentwood School in Essex. Fourteen years on the job and she has not once served a twizzled meat product. “Everything we cook is from scratch, and always has been. We are proud of that.” Carol wants to offer her school an authentic taste of Italy.
We were greeted at Hotel Rotelle by the master chef himself. Born on a farm just up the road in Montepulciano, he learnt to cook while holding his mother’s apron strings. At 14, Giancarlo left the family to work in a local restaurant and has never looked back. Now he and wife Katie own and run two successful restaurants and a cookery school in Marylebone, London. Their new Tuscan cookery school takes Giancarlo back to his roots.
Double kisses and a bottle of poolside prosecco later, Giancarlo charmed us with chit-chat as he prepared a lunch of salad and coal-grilled steaks thick as my (plus-size) arm. While Wendy, Carol and I demolished what seemed like an entire native Tuscan-breed Chianina cow, Giancarlo laid out our itinerary of shopping, cooking, eating and wine tasting.
There is an Italian saying that goes “a good cask makes good wine”, so we put the proverb to the test. Perched on the hillside town of Montalcino, the 13th-century Banfi Castle is a must-see on the Tuscan gourmet trail. Our guide led a user-friendly tasting introduction to the infamous brunello, a robust and velvety wine that pairs perfectly with food of the region. The afternoon’s surprise was a treacle-coloured sweet and sour “salsa balsamico” that we sipped from liqueur glasses, and which tasted nothing like the acrid balsamic vinegar on many UK supermarket shelves.
At Enoteca Cantucci, the producer of Montepulciano’s vino nobile, our charismatic septuagenarian host, Adamo, took us on a pied-piper tour of the cellars and passageways.
The next morning, en route to the market town of Sinalunga, Giancarlo gave us each 50 euros (£34) to spend in his own version of Supermarket Sweep meets Bargain Hunt. “Buy only the freshest,” Giancarlo instructed as he pointed out the best stalls to us. Wendy, Carol and I were left to our own purchasing with only the most basic Italian phrases between us. Somehow I managed to spend my whole stash in the first five minutes at one fish stall. I begged the sisters to share their money with me.
They were busy searching for garlic and fresh herbs, with little luck. Wendy said: “This is Italy and there’s no garlic or basil in the whole market.” A little tip from Giancarlo and we learnt that stallholders keep the precious items hidden under a tea towel in a basket. Luckily Giancarlo did some better-planned buying. With s hopping baskets gorged with salami and cheese, fresh fruit and vegetables, meat, seafood, honey and saltless Tuscan loaves, our task was to prepare dinner for our guests — Giancarlo’s cousin Gina and her husband Alfredo.
Our chef got us cracking in the kitchen. We simmered pillows of gnocchi, roasted pheasant and chicken, deep-fried tiny “milk fish” and twisted strands of dough into pici, the signature peasant pasta.
Peppers, aubergines and asparagus were char-grilled, tomatoes sliced and dressed, red onions roasted in olive oil and our balsamic elixir, purple artichokes cut paper thin and pan-fried, mussels steamed in garlicky broth. The pressure was on, but this wasn’t Hell’s Kitchen: no tantrums, no tears, just teamwork.
I did crack, though. When Giancarlo showed us how to prepare one of my favourite fish — perch — in a tomato, caper and olive sauce, I cried . . . and it wasn’t the onions. Moved by the emotion of one simple moment of culinary beauty, I was gone. Enthusiasm boiled over in the tiniest of tasks. Giancarlo showing how to scrape clean a mussel, tying together a bundle of herbs for Carol’s stock pot, or slicing a tranche of pecorino cheese. His confidence rubs off; before long we were knowledgeably sniffing soffrìtto (a mix of vegetables and seasonings cooked slowly in oil or butter) and tasting ragù.
Giancarlo’s skill is as much about teaching how to put ingredients together as it is about eating them. An impromptu kitchen masterclass in the art of eating Wendy’s risotto was an epiphany. We watched as a plate of creamy rice was spread out, gathered in, rested and tasted with finesse. What a difference to the “dish it out, shove it in” method we were used to.
The proof of our achievement came when our guests cleared their plates and went back for seconds . . . and thirds. All that hard work gave us quite an appetite, too.
My introduction to Tuscany was a revelation; now I know what all the fuss is about. I learnt not just how to cook and eat Tuscan style, but also that belief, passion and authenticity are perhaps the most important ingredients in what we eat. Giancarlo is a true Tuscan treasure. Buon appetito!
Need to know
La Cucina Caldesi (020-7487 0750, www.caldesi.com) runs cookery courses in Tuscany in July. Seven days, including accommodation at the Hotel Rotelle, classes, food, wine and excursions, cost £1,400. Book quoting The Times by June 30 for a 10 per cent discount. La Cucina Caldesi school in West London has year-round cooking courses.
Getting there: Flights from Stansted to Pisa with Ryanair (0871 2460000, www.ryanair.com) cost from £49 return. British Airways (0870 8509850, www.ba.com) flies to Pisa from Gatwick and Manchester from £79 return.
Reading: Return to Tuscany — Recipes from a Tuscan Cookery School by Giancarlo and Katie Caldesi (BBC Books, £14.99) is available at the Times Books First price of £13.49, including p&p. Call 0870 16058080, or visit www.timesonline.co.uk/booksfirst to order.
