Povera with Pride: Lessons In Cuisine and Culture Through a Tuscan Cooking Class

The smell is the first thing that grabs you.  Slow-cooked meat with rosemary offset by the smell of the earth after a rainstorm.  That’s before you see the farmhouse, peeping out in the hills surrounding San Gimignano, between the last vineyard and the start of the cypress trees.

This is where Flavia and her uncle Alberto have been cooking for guests for over a decade.  When guests started gravitating towards the kitchen to understand the secrets of why their waist bands were expanding, they hit upon a brainwave. Their agriturismo has recently added cooking classes, not for the photo op or certificate, but for the joy of passing on a holiday memory that matters.  We had arrived for this Tuscan cooking class (book it for yourself here ;-) at 5pm on a Friday evening and found ourselves the two customers, creating an intimate lesson in cuisine and culture.

“We are not chefs,” Flavia announced as we stepped into the kitchen, aprons already waiting. “We are Tuscans. We cook. That’s it.”

That distinction – Tuscans, not chefs – we quickly learnt was important.

We Are Not Chefs, We Are Tuscans

Tuscan cuisine has a reputation for simplicity - but don’t mistake that for carelessness. It’s precise in a way that doesn’t shout. At the heart of the philosophy: great ingredients, prepared thoughtfully, without clutter.

“Never ever garlic and onion together,” Alberto declared, slicing a red onion with surgical calm. “This is not Naples.  Or the UK” he sniffed in my direction.  Paul, my Irish partner, flashed me a "don't say a word" look. 

Alberto glanced at us over his reading glasses, as if daring us to disagree. “You don’t like soffritto?” Paul offered, diplomatically.

“We love soffritto,” Flavia entered the room right on cue, armed with a bottle of Chianti “but we also love curry.  That does not make it Tuscan.” She waved her hand dismissively. “Ours is either onion or garlic.  Not both.  And never chopped too fine, this is not the north.”

While Italy is famously regional when it comes to food, Tuscan cuisine stands apart for its restraint and clarity.  Where Neapolitan dishes might lean heavily on garlic, spice, and lush tomato sauces, and northern regions like Emilia-Romagna embrace cream, butter, and rich fillings, Tuscany prefers to let a few ingredients speak plainly.

Its bread is famously unsalted, beans are sacred, and seasoning is subtle. There’s little embellishment based on local produce, olive oil, herbs like sage and rosemary, and slow cooking. In Tuscany, flavour comes from the land, not the layering.  As we were quickly to discover, this is out of respect for the land from which the food originates.

That’s not to say there aren’t regional boundaries within Tuscany itself, coastal versus hill, Siena versus Florence (don’t get Alberto started on that one) but one thing holds true: the flavour comes from the ingredients, not the layering of spice or sauce. Tomato sauce isn’t sweetened. Beans aren’t drowned in herbs. And the idea of melting cheese over everything would be met with a long, hard stare.

The Tuscan Way

This restraint is first experienced in making proper Tuscan bruschetta.  Starting with a thick slice of unsalted Tuscan bread, toasted over a grill or open flame until crisp outside but still chewy inside.  While it’s still warm, rub it with a raw garlic clove (“never minced, this isn’t a pizza base” advised Alberto), either drizzle generously with olive oil and – common but not mandatory - top with diced vine-ripened tomatoes, a few torn basil leaves, a pinch of salt. That’s it. No balsamic, no mozzarella, no twelve-ingredient toppings. As Flavia said, watching Paul get enthusiastic with the chopping board: “If it looks like salad, you’ve gone too far.”

The centrepiece of the day was ragù Toscano. Flavia guided us through making pici, thick hand-rolled pasta from southern Tuscany. No eggs, just flour, water, and patience. “It should feel like a shoelace,” she laughed, as my pici came out somewhere between rope and linguine.

While the ragù browned (beef first, then pork), Flavia started a simple garlic and tomato sauce for the pici, in classic Val d'Orcia style. Whole garlic cloves gently simmered in olive oil – placed in cold oil and heated up together until golden. Tomato passata (a good one not the cheap supermarket variety) followed with a pinch of salt.  That was it. “The garlic says hello, then leaves,” Flavia declared as she tasted the sauce.

At the same time, Alberto guided us preparing fagioli all’uccelletto - a humble but deeply flavoured bean stew. Cannellini beans cooked slowly with sage, red onion, and crisped pancetta, finished with half a glass of Chianti “to stop it going thirsty”.  No garlic here. “Too many voices in the pot,” Alberto warned.

By 6pm, we had two dishes, each with barely five ingredients and and yet, somehow, full of character.  Both dishes felt like the kind of concoction you could whip up on a Sunday morning on finding unexpected guests were calling.  As Flavia said: “Our food isn’t about what you add. It’s about what you leave out.” “The Neapolitans should listen” declared Alberto, returning to his favourite theme as he poured the rest of the Chianti.

Povera With Pride

Tuscan cooking is sometimes described as cucina povera, the food of the peasant. Here, that’s not an insult but a badge of honour. You take what you have, and you treat it with respect.

“Alberto’s mother used to make ragù with the leftover parts of the cow or pig” Flavia said. “There was no waste, just creativity.”

The unsalted Tuscan bread – unremarkable on its own - is reborn in dishes like pappa al pomodoro (bread and tomato stew) or ribollita (a twice-boiled soup of beans, greens, and stale bread).  Beans, in fact, are everywhere: cannellini, borlotti, and the delightfully named fagioli del purgatorio (so-called as they are were traditionally consumed on Ash Wednesday). Cooked low and slow, always with sage, and never with cream or cheese.

“This is the food people survived on,” Alberto said. “And now, they come to us and pay to learn it.”  We joined in the laughter while making mental notes of the recipes to take home with us.

The Dialect of Food

After finishing preparation, we took a stroll around the property. The hills rolled down toward San Gimignano, its towers silhouetted in the evening sun. The vineyard rows looked arranged by someone with an eye for theatre. Somewhere nearby, someone was cutting hay. The whole place smelled of summer - rosemary, wood smoke, and earth.  With a glass of Chianti in hand, we contemplated how easy the whole process was and compared notes on which dishes we’d prepare first back home.

Flavia called us back inside, where the pici – politely reconstructed by Flavia into a passable shape - were waiting by a boiling pot. We dropped them into salted water (“not too much!”) for barely two minutes, then transferred them directly into the pan with the ragù to absorb its flavour.

“If you must, a little grated pecorino” said Flavia, gesturing towards the cheese, as we sat at the long wooden table. She watched like an overprotective parent while we politely grated a small topping.

But she needn’t have worried. It didn’t need anything else.  The vibrancy of the flavours stunned us into silence.

“You’ll never make it the same way again,” Alberto said, sipping his espresso at the end. “But that’s fine. Cooking is like speaking a dialect. You learn it best from someone who lives it.”

We came for a cooking class but left with a lesson in history, culture and cuisine.  Tuscan food tastes the way it does not because it’s bold, but because it’s confident. The kind of food that knows where it came from and doesn’t need to prove anything.

No onion and garlic together. No fuss. Just good oil, local wine, patience, and a lot of trust in the ingredient.  A dialect of Tuscany, spoken fluently, generously, and deliciously.

5 More Tuscan Dishes To Make Your Heart Sing

1. Ribollita

Ribollita literally means “reboiled,” and it’s the ultimate expression of cucina povera. This hearty soup is made from day-old bread, cannellini beans, kale (often cavolo nero), and vegetables like carrots, onions (so don’t even think about garlic), and celery. It’s thick, comforting, and best eaten a day after it's made, when the flavours deepen and the bread turns the broth into a rich stew.

2. Crostini di fegatini

A staple Tuscan antipasto, crostini di fegatini is toasted bread topped with a warm, savoury chicken liver pâté. Flavoured with capers, anchovy, and a splash of vin santo or white wine, the spread is rustic and deeply satisfying. It may not win beauty contests, but it wins hearts (and aperitivo hours) across the region.

3. Ragù al cinghiale

This wild boar ragù is Tuscany on a plate and my go-to Tuscan dish - earthy, rich, and unapologetically gamey.  Often paired with pappardelle, the sauce is slow-cooked with red wine, juniper berries, and sometimes a touch of tomato, letting the robust flavour of the meat take centre stage. It’s especially common in autumn and winter, when boar hunting is in season.

4. Pappa al pomodoro

This tomato and bread stew is the summer sibling of ribollita. Ripe tomatoes, garlic, basil, and stale Tuscan bread are cooked down with olive oil into a fragrant, velvety dish that’s served warm or room temperature. It’s proof that three or four ingredients can taste like magic. 

5. Cantucci e Vin Santo

A Tuscan meal often ends with cantucci (firm, almond-studded biscuits) and a small glass of vin santo, the region’s amber-hued dessert wine. The proper technique? Dunk the cantucci into the wine until softened (for British readers – think tea and biscuits), then eat in one satisfying bite. It’s simple, slightly indulgent, and unfailingly charming.

Other Ways to Get To Know Tuscany’s Cuisine

Outside of a Tuscan Cooking class, here are four other ways to experience the local culinary culture

1. Join A Food Tour:   

Food tours are a great way to orientate yourself to the region, as they feature both classic local dishes and some surprises along the way.  Do not eat beforehand!  We did this in Florence – including a stop at the city’s oldest gelateria – and had a sensational time.   Good options also exist in Sienaand Pisa

2. To Market! 

A quick Google search will reveal which towns have markets on each day and I cannot recommend highly enough that you visit.  With a focus on local produce of the highest quality, your challenge will be saying no to things.  If you’re thinking of living your picnicking in the Tuscan hills fantasy, this is an obligatory stop.

3. Truffle Hunting: 

A uniquely Tuscan experience, using dogs to hunt for the prized local black truffles and then turning them into a lunch you’ll never forget.  It relies on both the dog’s nose and a fair bit of luck.  Peak season is September to December.

4. Wine and Dine: 

If you have a car, take any backroad in Tuscany and you’ll stumble upon signs for wineries before long.  Often privately owned, always passionately served. 

One of our best memories of our Tuscany trip was a winery tucked in the hills behind Certaldo with Tinti Chianti – as the name suggests, a sensational range of Chianti (with a charcuterie board to die for) awaited us.