A bowl of thick farro and white bean soup finished with green olive oil, beside grilled bread rubbed with garlic, a sprig of sage and a saucer of almond biscotti with a small glass of amber wine

Tuscany in the Pantry: Its Jars and How to Cook Them

September 30, 2026

Italian has a teasing word for a big eater of beans, mangiafagioli, and the Treccani dictionary notes that popular sayings have pinned it on one city or region after another, Florentines in particular. The nickname points at something true about Tuscan cooking: it is built on a few plain foods that keep. The first is olive oil, protected across the whole region since 1998. Next come white beans, among them the thin-skinned Sorana from the hills above Pescia, and emmer farro from the Garfagnana valleys north of Lucca. Pici, the thick hand-rolled pasta of the south, is the fourth. The list ends with two biscuits, the almond biscotti of Prato and the spiced cavallucci of Siena. The table sets the six side by side, and the dishes at the end use several at once.

The six, in one table

Food	Where it comes from	What defines it	What it does in a dish	First dish to make
Olio extravergine Toscano IGP	The whole of Tuscany, with eight named sub-zones	Growing, pressing and bottling all inside the region; native varieties such as frantoio, leccino and moraiolo; green scent, bitterness and a peppery finish	Raw on beans, soup and bread; the cooking fat for everything else	Fettunta: grilled bread, garlic, oil
White beans (Fagiolo di Sorana IGP)	About 660 hectares in the municipality of Pescia, province of Pistoia	A small, flattened bean, pearly white with pink streaks; a skin so thin it barely registers and stays on in cooking	Body and creaminess; the base of the soup pot	Beans with sage, garlic and oil
Farro (Farro della Garfagnana IGP)	Hill towns of the province of Lucca	Emmer, Triticum dicoccum, grown between 300 and 1,000 meters; IGP since 1996	A chewy grain that holds its shape in a long simmer	Farro and bean soup
Pici	Val d'Orcia and Val di Chiana, southern Tuscany	A flour-and-water dough, rolled by hand into thick strands	A heavy noodle for garlic, tomato and oil	Pici all'aglione
Biscotti di Prato and Cantucci Toscani IGP	Prato; the IGP covers all of Tuscany	IGP: flour, sugar, eggs, butter, honey and whole unpeeled almonds; Prato's older recipe: flour, sugar, eggs, almonds, pine nuts	A dry biscuit for dipping	With Vin Santo after dinner
Cavallucci	Siena	Nuts, candied orange and citron, aniseed and honey; a Christmas biscuit	Soft, spiced, chewy	With coffee or dessert wine

Olive oil: the thread through the rest

Beans, farro and pici all start in olive oil or finish with it raw, and the Sorana register names it as one of the three things the bean is cooked with. Visit Tuscany, the regional tourism board, dates the Toscano IGP to 1998. Under it, growing, milling and bottling must all take place within Tuscany's administrative borders. Only mechanical and physical processes are allowed, and the olives are picked from the tree by hand, by machine or by stripping. The board lists the native varieties behind it as frantoio, leccino, moraiolo, maurino, leccio del corno, pendolino and correggiolo. It describes the oil as more or less intense green when young, turning yellow with green lights over time. The scent is of green vegetables, with a bitter note and a peppery sensation. Eight geographic mentions, among them Seggiano, Colline Senesi and Montalbano, can be added to the name.

Tenuta di Capezzana, at Carmignano in the province of Prato, points to a parchment of 804 AD showing that olives and vines were already grown there for oil and wine. The estate says the Contini Bonacossi family took it on in the 1920s, that Vittorio Contini Bonacossi brought in organic growing in the 2000s, and that the fourth and fifth generations run it now. The estate makes olive oil (shop Capezzana extra virgin olive oil). The olive oil buying guide explains harvest dates and labels, and the guide to tasting olive oil at home shows how to find the bitterness and pepper the IGP describes.

White beans: Sorana and its seed

The Tuscan regional register of protected foods records Fagiolo di Sorana IGP under Regulation EC 1018/2002. It grows on about 660 hectares on both banks of the Pescia di Pontito stream, in the municipality of Pescia. Locally it is called piattellino for its flattened shape. It is pearly white with pink streaks and reflections, and its skin is thin, almost insubstantial, and stays on during cooking. The register ties it to heavy rainfall of about 1,850 millimeters a year and soft, low-alkalinity water. The traditional way to cook it is to soak it for some hours in spring water and then cook it slowly with sage, garlic and olive oil. The register puts the entire certified crop of 2006 at 70 quintals, or seven tonnes.

Steve Sando of Rancho Gordo tells how an order arrived one day from Marcella Hazan in Florida. When he asked which Italian bean she missed most, he expected the Lamon or the Tuscan Zolfino, but she named Sorana. His team found the seed, and the bean was named for her. Rancho Gordo describes its Marcella as a thin-skinned cannellini grown in California from Italian Sorana seedstock, creamy when cooked slowly (shop Rancho Gordo Marcella beans). The IGP name belongs to Pescia; the seed travels. The Rancho Gordo producer guide tells the rest, and the guide to buying beans sorts protected names from style names.

Beans, bread and oil make ribollita as well. Visit Tuscany's recipe thickens a vegetable and cannellini soup with cavolo nero and stale Tuscan bread, and the name, reboiled, comes from cooking it again the next day until it is thick and dense. Chickpeas get the same slow treatment in the ceci in umido recipe guide, and white beans meet tinned fish in the tuna and white bean salad recipe.

Farro: emmer from the Garfagnana

Qualigeo, the Qualivita foundation's database of protected foods, dates Farro della Garfagnana IGP to 1996 and places it in certain towns of the province of Lucca, between 300 and 1,000 meters. Del Colle, a producer there, names the species as Triticum dicoccum, which is emmer, and grows it at about 800 meters. It says the grain is large, stands up well to cooking, and keeps its grains separate and dry. Visit Tuscany says Garfagnana farro is mostly used in soups and broths.

Agribosco's pearled farro (shop Agribosco farro perlato) comes from next door. Agribosco is an organic grain and legume house at Sigillo, in the Umbrian Apennines, founded by two farmers who turned organic. It now turns the crops of a consortium of more than 130 organic farms into grains, legumes, pasta and flour. The Ancient Grains Alliance says pearled farro needs no soak and is tender in about 15 to 20 minutes. The farro guide explains the three grades, and the Agribosco producer guide covers the maker.

Pici: the pasta of the south

Visit Tuscany places pici above all in the Val d'Orcia and the Val di Chiana, in southern Tuscany, and describes them as a flour-and-water pasta. The dough is cut into strips no wider than a centimeter and rolled by hand until each one is a long, thick strand. The sauce the board gives is aglione, named for a mild garlic variety of the Val di Chiana: garlic, tomato, olive oil and chile.

Antico Pastificio Morelli 1860 has made pasta in Tuscany for five generations, at San Romano in the province of Pisa, and its signature is wheat germ worked back into the dough. Pici are among the regional shapes it makes (shop Morelli pici). The Italian pantry pasta guide covers how dried shapes and sauces pair.

Biscotti di Prato and cantucci: two recipes, one habit

Cantucci Toscani became an IGP in 2016. The specification covers all of Tuscany and asks for flour, sugar, fresh eggs, butter, honey and whole, unpeeled sweet almonds, the almonds at least 20 percent of the finished biscuit. Visit Tuscany records the habit of dipping them in a fortified wine such as Vin Santo.

Antonio Mattei opened his bakery in Prato in 1858, and his recipe is older than the IGP and follows its own list. The 250-gram bag lists five ingredients: flour, sugar, eggs from barn-raised hens, almonds and pine nuts, with no added fat (shop Antonio Mattei biscotti di Prato). Pellegrino Artusi, a friend of the founder, praised him in print. The house suggests the biscuits with Vinsanto after dinner, or with coffee. Prato links two of these foods: the Mattei bakery is in the city, and Capezzana's olives grow in the same province at Carmignano. The Antonio Mattei producer guide tells the family's story, and the biscotti and butter cookies guide places both styles in the wider family.

Siena's sweets: cavallucci and the rest

Visit Tuscany counts cavallucci among the best-known Christmas sweets in Tuscany and traces them to Renaissance Siena. Its recipe uses chopped nuts, candied orange and citron, aniseed and honey. The name is unexplained; one theory points to the furrow on top, another to the inns where travelers changed horses.

Le Dolcezze di Nanni has worked since 1959 at Ponte d'Arbia, in the Val d'Arbia south of Siena beside the Via Francigena. It was founded by the family of Giovanni Marini, whom friends called Nanni, and his son Marco now bakes from recipes kept by his grandmother Ada. The house makes panforte still cooked in copper pots, amaretti pinched by hand one at a time, ricciarelli, cantucci and brutti e buoni. Its cavallucci are made with walnuts and orange peel (shop Nanni cavallucci). It also makes almond and fig cantucci (shop Nanni almond fig cantucci).

Three dishes, and one way to end the meal

Beans the Sorana way, on fettunta. Soak 500 grams of Marcella or other small white beans for two to six hours. Drain, cover by 5 centimeters with fresh water, and add three peeled garlic cloves, a sprig of sage and three tablespoons of olive oil. Bring to a boil for ten minutes, then keep the pot at the barest simmer until the beans are creamy, anywhere from one to three hours. Salt once they begin to soften. Grill thick slices of bread, rub them with a cut clove of garlic, pile the beans on with a little of their liquid, and finish with raw oil and black pepper. The guide to cooking heirloom beans covers the pot, and the cooking at altitude guide explains why beans take longer in Denver.

Farro and bean soup. Soften a chopped onion, carrot and celery stalk in four tablespoons of olive oil with a sprig of rosemary. Add half the cooked beans from the pot above and purée them with a liter of their liquid and water. Stir in 200 grams of pearled farro and simmer, stirring now and then, until the grain is tender with a chew, about 20 to 25 minutes. Add the whole beans for the last five minutes. Serve with a thread of raw oil; it is better the next day. The farro recipe guide gives the full method.

Pici all'aglione. For two, slice four garlic cloves and warm them in five tablespoons of olive oil over low heat until soft, not brown, with a pinch of chile flakes. Add a 19-ounce tin of whole peeled tomatoes (shop I Contadini pelati), crushed by hand, and simmer for about 20 minutes until thick. Boil 250 grams of pici in well-salted water; thick strands take longer than spaghetti, so follow the package and taste. Toss the pici in the sauce with a splash of the pasta water and finish with raw oil.

After dinner. Set out biscotti di Prato and cavallucci with small glasses of Vin Santo for dipping. In summer the same bread and oil go into panzanella, and the panzanella recipe guide has the method.

The shop is at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver. Products ship nationwide from theambrosianpantry.com. Visitors can ask staff questions in the shop.