Creating a market day menu for me is like being on one of those cooking shows every time I shop. In my own village, Certaldo, we have our large weekly market on Wednesday. They bring it all in, not just food. This is like the mall coming to you, you can get almost anything you need, that the small specialty shops in town don’t carry. Curtains, cushions, kitchen ware, shoes, clothing, plants and then the food trucks with prepared foods or simply fresh fruit and vegetables. But not all the fruit and vegetable stands grow what they sell, many are simply like a shop, buying their produce at the main market in Florence.
Of course, in Florence, we have the Mercato Centrale, the central market, but there are not farmers there. In Florence, there are a few special markets which bring in the small farmers to town.
Usually you can tell the real farm stands by the smaller selection of seasonal produce. In Certaldo, I have two or three farm stands I can choose from. Saturday morning, there is another small market in the main piazza in town. Once a month, I like to travel to another town on Saturday to shop. I can go to Castelfiorentino, which is having their large weekly market or to Montespertoli, which has a small farmer’s market in their town square.
I was thrilled to see these lovely beets at the Montespertoli market, not just for the beets, but I adore the beet greens. The color was so electric and the flavor is distinct. In Italy, we twice cook greens, boiling or steaming first to tenderize them, then drain and saute to cook with garlic, peperoncino and EVO.
We went to the market especially to buy some cheese from our friend, Guido Tosi, Formaggio del Dottore. He has a small farm about 30 minutes from us. He also grows chickpeas. Locally we use a lot of chickpeas and chickpea flour. He had some pici pasta, a local thick extruded spaghetti, made with 30% chickpea flour. He also had some of the tiny Florentine chickpeas for sale, which i picked up. I can never have too many legumes in the house. The rule of thumb is rosemary with chickpeas and sage with white beans. A clove or two of garlic and cover with water, a nice drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and be sure to add water when they need them. I adore cooking in clay and have the time, so just put on to cook and go about my day here. I understand that pressure cookers do a great job. I just don’t have one.
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The beet greens and chickpeas reminded me of a recipe i did when reviewing my friend Pamela Sheldon John’s book, Cucina Povera for a recipe which was stewed chickpeas, which is sometimes called a cacciucco ( named for a fish soup from Livorno). But the fish soup doesn’t have any greens in it. We do have a wonderful recipe called Zimino, often written as Inzimino, which is a stew with a tomato base, leeks and then greens and normally squid. Often people don’t like squid, so I do this chickpea version.
There are no measurements for this as you can easily fake it and adapt to any number of portions. As a guideline, equal parts cooked greens and chickpeas ( like 2 cups each) then add as much or as little tomato sauce as you like, I tend to go light, about a cup. As it cooks it will all amalgamate.
The traditional recipe uses squid, cut into pieces, lightly sauteed first then removed from the pan and put back in when you add the tomato.
Great served with slices of Tuscan fettunta, toasted bread rubbed with garlic.
I am going to start doing some cooking videos as well as taking you to local markets with me.
If you want to be a part of the Dining with the Diva, message me and I can add you to our private FB page.
Which markets in Florence would you reccomend? (True farmers/artisan markets)
at sant’ambrogio there may be one or two farmers selling their own products– but usually the “Special” markets are the ones where the real farms come in and artisans. not every weekend.there is a association called Campagna Amica which is for farmers– and piazza santo spirito has a market with farmers and artisans, you need to check the dates.
Thank you! I am going in May to Florence, haven’t been there for over 10 years. I will probably explore some of the towns nearby between Florence and Siena, so will check market dates for towns there as well.
you can download my free app– TASTE CHIANTI for some info on a little bit of everything! divinacucina.com both android and for apple. I will look for the special markets in may and post on my FB page
Daniel- do you already have your dates? most markets are on the weekends. let me know,
I do, I will be going from the 3rd of May to the 9th. If you have any information about interesting events/markets during those dates in and around Florence, let me know 🙂
the 5-8 is the festival of the iris– in San Polo in Chianti– my friends , the pruneti family– raises the iris– but also wine and incredible olive oil– they are listed on my app ( in the shop listing)
Fantastic; I just downloaded the app, will definitely go there. There is also the market in Panzano on Sunday, right? Any other towns nearby with a market day during those days?
in the about section i list the major market days
you can read through the app and then “star” the things you want to see!
sort of filter through
do you have android or apple?
Android. Thank you for all the information, and looking forward to continue to read your blog. Although this time it won’t be a long trip, I am hopping that I will be able to have longer (2-3 weeks) trip to Italy in the future. If so, will definitely try to make the time to go to one of your cooking classes, they seem fun – from what I saw on your blog and facebook.
And sorry, but one final question if you know. While looking online I also found that there seems to be a market held on Saturday at the Piazza della Repubblica. Do you know if that is still the case? If so, I might go to that one on Saturday, and do my travels around Tuscany on some of the other days. Thank you so much once again for answering these questions!
i will find out– not sure if it is every saturday! the Mercato Centrale in Florece and the Mercato San Ambrogio are worth visiting. and there are two other sometimes markets in florence.. santissima annunziata has a farmers market ( maybe once a year?) and Piazza Santo Spirito
you need to move here
I sure do. I actually lived in Florence when I was very young (2-3 years old), but my Italian is non-existent. I have visited Italy a few times since, but never back to Florence.