Recipes from the Kitchen Wall

For many years my mother kept a poster with traditional Tuscan recipes from old Tuscan restaurants and trattorias, places with names like Trattoria del Co'co Sporco (the Filthy Cook's Trattoria) and Al Principe (The Prince's). The poster is by now faded and yellowed with age, but the recipes are as fresh as they were when Mom first tacked them to the wall. They are also old-style Italian, in that the cooks who wrote them assume their readers will be familiar with the dishes, and therefore simply list the ingredients rather than give precise quantities; the same holds true for cooking times. I have filled in details where necessary.

Al Cannoncino proposes Sausages and Beans, which is about as classic as one could hope to get:
Sauté several pork sausages (figure 1-2 links per person, depending upon their size) with a bay leaf and several crushed cloves of garlic. Add Tuscan white beans (figure a pound, or 500 g, of dried beans for 4 people, soaked for 3 hours and then boiled for an hour) and tomato sauce to taste, between a half cup and a cup (125-250 ml). Season well with salt and pepper, cover, and simmer over a gentle flame until the beans are quite soft, a half hour or more. Serve hot.

La Trattoria del Co'co Sporco, the Filthy Cook's Trattoria, proposes Panzanella Toscana, a tasty bread salad that is extremely refreshing in the summer months. Their version is richer than some:
Take a loaf of very stale Tuscan bread and soak it for about 2 hours (if the crumb of your bread is less firm, soak it for less). Squeeze most of the moisture out, and dry it with a kitchen towel. It will be well crumbled at this point; put it in a salad bowl. Season it with good olive oil, and cut into it a stick of celery, 2-3 seeded, drained tomatoes, an equivalent volume of the salad green of your choice, a cucumber, a bell pepper, and half a medium onion. Season with salt and pepper, mix well, and chill for 2 hours in the refrigerator. Sprinkle it with red wine vinegar and mix again before serving.

Al Vecchio Molin del Matto, at the Old Madman's Mill, they suggest Ribollita, or Bread Soup, a fine way for dealing with stale bread in winter. The recipe is a bit unusual, in that it omits the black leaf kale one usually finds in ribollita, substituting for it with white cabbage.
Mince the standard herbs (half a small onion, a small carrot, a small rib of celery, and a small bunch parsley) and sauté them in olive oil in a deep pot; when the onion has become translucent stir in 2-3 tablespoons tomato paste and the broth from a pound (500 g) of dried white beans, which you will have previously soaked for 3 hours in cold water and then boiled for an hour in ample water to cover. Shred into the pot a pound (500 g) of beet greens and half a head of white cabbage. Peel and dice 3-4 potatoes and add them to the pot, together with the beans, season to taste with salt and pepper, and simmer until the vegetables are done. While they're cooking, thinly slice a loaf of day old crusty Tuscan bread. Put down a layer of bread in a terracotta soup pot, ladle some of the soup over it, and follow it with another layer of bread; continue until all is used up, making certain that the soup soaks the bread thoroughly. You can serve it at once, or let it set overnight and heat it through the next day.

The Antica Trattoria al Principe offers Stewed Eels, classic river fare in Italy, and suggests you get your eels from either the Arno or the Chiana River.
Crush 2-3 cloves of garlic and sauté them with several leaves of sage in good olive oil, in an ample skillet. While they're sautéing, flower your eels (figure a half pound (225 g) of cleaned fish per person), and then sauté them too, turning them carefully to brown all sides; this should take about 5 minutes. Season well with salt and pepper, add about a cup of tomato sauce, cover, and simmer until the eels are done, about 25 minutes. Serve hot.

Peppe, of Da Peppe alla Casaccia (Peppe's Old House) suggests a Scrambled Tomatey Frittata, and this s a variation on the classic Italian custom of serving eggs sunny-side-up on a bed of stewed tomatoes (to do this, have a half-inch thick layer of stewed tomatoes simmering in your skillet, and crack two eggs per person onto them. Cover the skillet if you're doing them on the stove, and cook until the desired doneness of the eggs, or bake the dish in a preheated 400 F (200 C) oven until the eggs are as you like them. Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve with crusty bread.)
Returning to Peppe, he has you crush 2-3 cloves of garlic and sauté them in about a quarter cup of olive oil; when they have become golden add sufficient tomato sauce to cover the bottom of the pan, and while it's heating beat your eggs, figuring two per person. Slowly add the eggs to the simmering tomatoes, stirring all the while, and when you have finished adding them cook a minute more, still stirring. Serve at once.

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