'I had never cared about lunch, until I was introduced to Sunday ones in Tuscan vineyards. Celebrations of food and wine amongst friends and family, they transcend the notion of mere meals and transform into a theatre for the senses.
It has much to do with the setting, the compelling beauty of ancient surroundings, of land which has yielded produce for millennia, of eroded stone walls and roads which wind through hills, and row upon row of vines. There is little more glorious then sitting through hours of golden summer afternoons at a long wooden table with twelve or sixteen or twenty others, or in winter warming limbs and souls with fires and food and wine.
Gianfranco has friends at Montespertoli and we go there often, mostly for winter lunches. We crunch up the circular gravel driveway and arrive at the back door, which leads into a vast stone kitchen filled with people. The ancient stove roars with flames, heating an assortment of saucepans that steam forth wonderful aromas. Someone is carving a prosciutto, claret-red slices sliding off the edge of the knife. There are women to stir the saucepans, wash the salad, slice the bread. I make myself useful by carrying cutlery to the dining room where men pose around the leaping fire, clutching glasses of Campari and smoking. Handpainted jugs of water and flowers clutter the table. I set for eighteen people, folding paper napkins into tiny triangles beside each plate. Two-litre bottles of homegrown chianti, translucent red, line up like soldiers. Outside the tall windows mist wraps around bare trees and church spires.
Platters are placed on the table: slices of wild-boar salami, tiny spicy venison sausages, rounds of toast topped with coarse chicken-liver pate sweetened with marsala, shiny black olives tossed in garlic and parsley. Wine is tipped into glasses and wedges of crusty, spongy bread passed around. Lunch has begun.
Pasta comes next, a deep ceramic bowl of steaming spaghetti in a simple tomato sauce fragrant with fresh basil, or a rich cream redolent of wild mushrooms. On top of the fire have been placed two metal grills which clip together to enclose the main course: thick slabs of prime beef, a handful of quails, fat homemade sausages. Passed around the table they are black-striped and crisp from the flames, perfumed with fresh rosemary, garlic and good oil.
Afterward there is a chunk of parmesan, aged and crumbly, and a tangy pecorino from Sardinia to eat with a large bowl of various fruits. This is the winding-down stage of the lunch, when women begin to push back chairs and carry out plates and men light up cigarettes and pour whisky. Coffee brews aromatic from the kitchen, conversation subdues and becomes sleepy, comfortable and confidential, Pastries accompany the coffee: a wealth of shortbreads, crunchy almond biscuits, macaroons and iced eclairs bulging cream. Vin Santo, sweet and dark, is pouted into small glasses; outside the evening has begun to descend and Sunday lunch settles.'
from Amore and Amaretti - Victoria Cosford
