11th June Lunch Sorana (Pescia River Valley)
Trip Start
Apr 27, 2000
1
46
81
Trip End
Aug 09, 2000
Vellano,
Italy
Thursday, June 26, 2003
"Scratch an Italian, even more so, scratch a Tuscan, and you will find a contadino"
A contadino is a peasant farmer. Mary maintaines that the general topic of conversation among men at a restaurant, starts with the meal they are eating, progresses to the produce used, and eventually ends up with a discussion about the best way to farm the produce.
I can't vouch for this as my command of Italian stretches from polite helo and goodbys,to counting from 1 to 10, to 30 different gelato flavours, the name of maybe 10 vegetables, several kinds of meats and an asortment of odd words that are of no use without other words to make up a sentence, with the exception of "Una Birra", which is two words. For lunch on a rainy, stormy, cloudy, pretty ordinary sort of day, we went to Ristorante da Carla at Castelevecchio. I drove. Down the mountain. A little way down the road in the bottom of the valley, then off to the right (West), on another single lane road up the other side of the valley, separated by the hill on which Sorana sits. Actually, the restaurant is one of two on the river flats below Sorana, but I guess they take the name of Casteleveccio for their address because it is a bigger town. There are only fifty people left in Sorana. Castelevecccio has 150 or so, the same as Serra Pistoiese, on the next ridge just up the valley from Vellano which has 200 or so. The Sorana river flats are special because of its microclimate. We saw every inch of space on the flats, among the chesnut forests, all just beginning to sprout their current crop of beans in neat rows. The moist air, plus the soil, plus the sun, whatever, these beans will sell for L30,000-L40,000 ($A30.00) per kilo. They are the most sought after beans in Italy. As there wouldn't be any more than a couple of acres of river flats, I'm not surprised.
These two restaurants are patronised by people from up to 30km away, and Sunday is always a huge family lunch day. Mary had booked, but because of the weather, we ended up sitting inside. Next to us were two large tables with probably 30 people having a celebratory family lunch to celebrate their eight year old sons first communion. It was the son of Mary's hairdresser, and she and Julian knew a number of the other guests. We became a kind of supplementary table to them, and they brought us sparkling white wine to drink a toast.
We started with antipasto. They just brought five platters of all sorts of bits and pieces-it's the owners choice. We ordered our own Primi and Secondi. I had a home made pasta (5cm square sheets) with a mince and tomatoe sauce. It was OK but nothing out of the ordinary. Ches had fettucini with a porcini sauce, and said it was very, very ordinary. In fact, she left most of it. Similarly, her grilled rabbit was dry. My steak was something else again. I shared it with Mary (it's a dish for two). A three inch T-bone, chargrilled (rare), then carved off the bone into thin slices, over which is poured very hot olive oil, infused with herbs. It is served on a bed of shredded rocket. It was sensational- tender and rare, and with a flavour that is out of this world. It and the desert, "Torta de Nonna", were so good, that I have recorded the receipes for both. Mary and Julian kept the red wine flowing, and before we knew it, four hours had passed. Not a bad way to spend a Sunday afternoon. A coffee was all I needed later that evening to top me up.
