Umbria

Cantalamessa, CC BY 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Fave dei Morti: Almond biscuits – Chestnuts and Truffles TV

A repost of a popular video I made a few years back to show how they celebrate November 2 in Umbria.   These almond biscuits from Umbria are traditionally served on November 2, the feast of All Souls day, hence the name which means beans of the dead. Fave dei Morti Ingredients 250g (2 2./3 …

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Salsa tartufata: truffle sauce (recipe)

  It’s black summer truffle season here in the Tuscan Valtiberina and these alternative fruits of the forest are everywhere. Less pungent than in some other areas of Italy they are often served grated over pasta or grilled meat in abundance. There’s one restaurant in the village where the set menu looks like its own …

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La befana

In Italy, Christmas comes twice a year

  Christmas comes but once a year, but it’s a little known fact that in Italy, children get two bites at the panforte. Another festival, with huge similarities to the festivities on the 25th December, occurs just twelve days later. On the night of the 5th January, Italian children hang up their stockings at the end of the …

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Florence at Christmas: a photo essay

  The magic of Florence is legendary. The city, with its red-tiled roofs fills the wide valley of the river Arno, straddled by the ponte vecchio, literally paved with gold shops. The enormous cupola of the duomo, also red-tiled, has given Florence one of the most recognized skylines in the world, to rival, Paris, London, New York, but …

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Tozzetti all’anice: Aniseed biscotti – Chesnuts and Truffles TV

  Tozzetti are the Umbrian version of cantucci (aka biscotti or biscotti di Prato) and are slightly different containing hazelnuts as well as almonds and being flavoured with aniseed. I first had these at the Saio Winery in Assisi, where they served them as part of the food to taste with their wine. Cantucci are traditionally dipped in …

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Tuscan wines: Panaccio 2011

Exploring the wines of the new Tuscan revolution When people think of Tuscan wine, they think of Chianti, and rightly so because the Chianti region occupies the majority of the wine producing area of central Tuscany, and is the third largest Italian region in terms of DOC/G production. Most people are aware also that forty …

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