Pane e companatico: bread in Tuscany

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Photo by foéÖþoooey

This is a linguistic trace of the central role played by bread in the Italian culinary tradition, especially when ‘companatico’ was scarce and more expensive than most people could afford. Bread is so important in our dietary tradition that we have national laws explicitly meant to define the different types and the products which can go in its preparation.

Italians apparently eat 66kg of bread per person every year. My grandparents ate bread with anything: pasta, vegetables and even fruit. I remember being served bread and figs and bread and wine with sugar during festive family meals. And every time I go to my parents’ place in the countryside, I cannot but remember my grandfather sitting on a half-broken wooden bench, slicing a stale loaf of bread with his pocket knife and eating it with ripe grapes or peaches.

Continue reading this article @ At Home in Tuscany