taking me to florence s central market to show me the ingredients of what the italians call cucina povera , poor food. so, you wanna show me some beans which are a staple of florentine cooking. so you have different types. for different dishes. the best are zolfini. these type of beans are solid but you don t need to put in the water before cooking. oh really? and they taste so. you don t have to soak them beforehand? no, that s the difference. it means the florentines eat the beans. the bean eaters. yeah, because we are using so many different oh no, now you re going to mix them all up. [laughs] the cooking is really, very poor, simple cooking. that s true. i read that during the
so we re going to go and have some food now. she knows me too well. really? it s a very sophisticated form of panzenella. this looks very different to the rustic bread salad we had for lunch. daniella: but it tastes of panzanella. it completely tastes of panzanella. panzanella was what the farmers would eat. and now it s turned into this very sophisticated tucci: foam. foam. you see, the past being rediscovered. tucci: it s a little renaissance in a bowl. daniella: there s a little renaissance in it and a lot of the future. [crowd chatting] [bustling crowds]
experiment with science, with the arts, with food, with spices. so it was like you say a think tank. a think tank. or a taste tank. exactly. expert art restorer daniela murphy is sneaking me in for an audience with the most powerful medici of them all. where is he? he s right, right there. oh my. meet cosimo primo de medici. he led the family at their dizzying height in the 1500s. in this fresco undergoing restoration, he s become so powerful he s being crowned grand-duke of tuscany by the pope himself he marries an extremely wealthy woman, the spanish princess eleanor de toledo. not only does she bring a lot of money but she brings a lot of the new spices from the new world. the chocolates, the coffee, everything that is the cuisine. that s when the tomato arrived? that s when it arrives more or less in that era then. which completely altered
doesn t go to waste to florentine aristocrats. it s great to see these definitive tuscan flavors now inspiring a new generation, making exciting food that looks to the future while respecting the land and its history. day. uncle leo s legacy. summiting kilimanjaro. asher s art phase. the moment you knew it was love. whatever you treasure, make it last. framebridge. to be a thriver with metastatic breast cancer means asking for what we want. and need. and we need more time.
that s the most convincing. [laughs] for me panzanella is one of the greatest dishes of tuscan poor food. giving brittle old bread new life by using fresh tomatoes to create a surprisingly refreshing salad. knowing my love of food and art, daniela has invited me to a festival this evening. a very fancy festival. the one thing that everybody has in common is the food. yeah. this event is about as far as you can get from the wheat threshing festival. here florence s richest and most powerful families have gathered, as they have for centuries, to toast the city s new creative talent from chefs and musicians, to artists hoping to follow in the footsteps of da vinci and michelangelo. you are right now in a situation where, more or less 500 years ago, the medici would have done something like this.