Home on the Range- Maremma

I had a couple of days off and my husband worked so hard moving me while I was in America, I wanted us to have a little get-away. The weather had finally cleared up and spring was in full bloom, so we decided to head for the beach.

How to choose which beach? We could head up towards the Cinque Terre (stopping on the coast nearby) or Viareggio, off season I adore the art deco boardwalk. Instead we decided to head south from Siena to Maremma, the “wilder” coast where Tuscan cowboys roam.

Maremma has a huge park, Parco dell’Uccellina, which we had not visited in ages. All I really wanted to do was to breathe the clean air at the sea and eat some fish.

I spend a lot of time planning trips for others- for myself we just winged it.
We avoid taking the major highways so it takes us a longer time to get anywhere, but we enjoy the scenery and small towns we discover on the way.

We chose Alberese as a destination and saw there was a Marina di Alberese, the port,which I thought sounded like a great place to stay.

Little did we know that the “Marina” was in a national park! We discovered our mistake as the sun was setting so headed to the village of Alberese, which was practically a ghost town this early in the season and not on a weekend. We were lucky enough to meet a woman there with a agritourismo, working farm with apartments for rent. The apartment had a small kitchen and would be great for a longer stay.

After settling in, she suggested a local fish restaurant near by and off we went.

fresh anchovies, two ways

 

 

pici pasta with cuttlefish and wild asparagus
papparedelle with artichokes and prawns
roasted fish “in cartoccio” with juniper, myrtle and shellfish

 

cooked whole, served boned

 

coffee bavarese- extremely light

Agritourismo Timavo

Restaurant “Da Remo”

Before we left Alberese, we stopped by the local shop to bring home some of the products from the local farms. We bought meat from the cattle pictured above, cheese and some cookies made with rice flour.

The farmlands of Maremma were created by Mussolini, who drained the swamps and brought in share-croppers to work the land. Alberese was farmed mostly by people from Veneto. To receive a farm, one had to have had 4 men in the family. After share-cropping for years, they were allowed to take possession of the farms, paying rent for 30 years. It was fascinating to speak to the locals, who still have their Venetian accents.  Our landlady’s mother showed us old family foto’s and told stories of her childhood there.

Every trip is a piece of history.

Right now I have two pots on the stove, one with a pot roast with the flavors of the plants from the Maremma countryside, wild myrtle and bay leaves with some rosemary and juniper berries.

Tuscan Stracotti- Pot Roast, with myrtle, juniper berries and bay leaves

The other stew meat I am preparing as a Peposa, cooked in red wine with black pepper and garlic. That will be dinner. Tomato sauce was not used in cooking until around 1650, after the New World was discovered, so am only using wine.