As I drive east, the gentle rolling hills of Tuscany gradually give way to lofty peaks and deep valleys. The scenery takes my breath away, in every sense: I draw a deep breath before setting down steep roads next to sheer drops, no guard rails.
I’m on the way to Le Marche, a region in east-central Italy. Like Tuscany, its better-known neighbour, Marche has hilltop villages, stone houses coloured warm by the sun, crumbling castles and tall sycamores. But Marche also has the constantly shifting hues of the Adriatic Ocean and the dramatic Apennine Mountains, their hills a patchwork of greens and gold. There’s a refreshing lack of visual noise; hardly any souvenir shops, tour buses or billboards. Most of all, it’s quiet. In many ways, Le Marche feels like the Italy I visited as a kid in the 70s.
I’m off to cooking school. Before leaving, my children reminded me food-preparation is probably not my most shiny mothering skill. “Cooking lessons are wasted on you. You can’t even microwave popcorn without burning it,” they said.
Cheeky daughters notwithstanding, I’m here to learn simple farm-to-fork cooking. I’m to experience the entire process: visiting vineyards, seeing busy bees produce honey, shopping for meats and cheeses, picking vegetables, and create a 5-course-feast. Bit daunting that. As it turns out, I’m also to get up at 4am for la transumanza, herding cattle to summer grazing.
Slow food
Arriving at the 300-year-old stone house locally known as Ca’ Camone, I’m dusty and grimy after dashing across gravel roads with open windows. Fortunately, I’m greeted by a guy wearing shorts and a t-shirt.
But looks can be deceiving. This is no California beach bum. Jason Bartner is a professional chef with years of experience at high-end restaurants in San Francisco and New York – and with a heart for the slow food movement. Today, Jason and his wife Ashley run La Tavola Marche, an eco-friendly agriturismo and cooking school near the village of Piobbico, in the foothills of the Apennines.
Ashley is a lively Seattle-girl with expressive dark eyes who makes me feel at home right away. I ask if she is Italian. Normally it’s Jason who gets that, she laughs. ‘You must be Italian,’ locals tell him. ‘You cook just like my mamma. Please tell me you are at least a little bit Italian.’
Cooking in Italy
As an introduction to the local cuisine, we’re invited to dine under the stars. Salami, dried sausages, pecorino cheese and home-cured olives are on the table. There’s prosciutto & melon, eggs with salsa verde, a particularly delicious lentil salad, a pear & pine nut salad. And we’re still only at the antipasti.
Primo is often a carbohydrate-rich course. We’re served Strozzapreti pasta (meaning strangled priests!) with baby courgette. Secondo is rosemary-skewered sausage, steak and pancetta with grilled polenta. To go with all this meaty goodness, we drink local house wines – a Montepulciano red and a Verdicchio white. For dolce, sweet dessert, we have a yummy pannacotta.
As digestivi, Ashley serves her homemade nocino (walnut) and brugnolino (plum) liqueurs made on fruits and nuts soaked in 95 % alcohol. I ask where she buys the spirits: at the pharmacist, perhaps? ‘I get it at the hardware store,’ Ashley replies. ‘Same place we buy our chickens.’
La transumanza
Blurry photo, that’s what happens when a herd of cattle storms towards you.
The next morning, before sunrise, we’re poised in the center of Piobbico, cameras ready, waiting for the herd to enter the village. Then, before we know it, the cattle have raced past, leaving only dust in their wake. Incredibly, one cow stops for a second, posing. I’m so perplexed I forget to click. Then we run after, round the corner, up the hill.
Herding cows up to graze on lush mountain grass is an ancient tradition and the timing of the transumanza is important. The grass must be the right length, the temperature just so. Hiking up Monte Nerone takes 6 hours. Sadly, we have places to go, things to see, so we can’t follow for long.
The crying grape of Le Marche
Next day, we’re off to visit Giovanni Giusti and his family-run winery. Lacrima di Morro d’Alba is in focus, a grape indigenous to Marche since Roman times. Lacrima means tear, So melancholic, so romantic…
We’re given a tour of the cellars, then sit beneath olive trees next to his vineyard for a long, leisurely tasting. A few hours later, I’m certain I can taste the ancient origins of Lacrima, taste history, taste the tears. And for an afternoon, I’m in love – with the wine, with Giovanni, his family, Le Marche, with the world. But that’s another story.
Marco is our wine guide for the day. After years working in Australian vineyards, he has returned home to dabble at wine making and run winery tours. Clearly passionate about Le Marche, he is convinced the region has as much potential for food and wine tourism as Tuscany. Trouble is there’s no tourist infrastructure. Restaurants don’t even have menus in English, he says. Marche, it appears, has a communications problem.
Returning to La Tavola Marche, we’re in time for pizza night. Friends and neighbours stop by for this weekly tradition, where pizza after pizza is cooked in a large, outdoors wood-fired oven. Each has just a few ingredients, all fresh from the meat and cheese warehouse and the garden: salami, roasted pepperoni, prosciutto, mozzarella, ricotta, onions, and tomatoes.
I’m introduced to pizza bianca and it quickly becomes my favourite. This white pizza is easy to make, too – topped with thinly sliced potatoes, olive oil, ricotta, rocket salad, salt & pepper. That’s it! I may impress the kids yet (take that, microwave popcorn.)
‘All I want is to pass the cooking of this area on to others,’ says Jason. ‘The beautiful simplicity and the quality of the ingredients are what matters.’
He continues: ‘How I work now is fundamentally different from what I did earlier. Before, it was about transforming ingredients into something else. Here, the ego is taken out of cooking. It’s not about me, it’s about the tomato. Nature makes it perfectly. My job is simply to highlight its qualities, to do as little with it as possible. And cook with the seasons.’
Cured meats and cheeses
The next day it’s down to business. We visit Domenico Fusciani in the village Apecchio, meat and cheese artisan. I wouldn’t have found him in a million years. Not only because I have crap sense of direction, but there’s no sign, no adverts, nothing at all pointing to this foodie heaven. We shop for our cooking lesson and sample the goodies, along with wine. Never mind it being 10 am.
Back at Ca’ Camone, we pick veggies. Jason grows strawberries, rhubarb, herbs, beans, potatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, aubergine, courgette, celery, tomatoes and much more. The garden could be a full time job in itself, he tells us. As it is, he spends two hours every morning watering. So why not set up sprinklers? Turns out the plants must be watered at ground level. Sprinklers can ruin them. I suspect he also enjoys it.
Time to get serious
It’s time to chop and slice, and we learn how. With my technique – or lack thereof – I’m lucky I haven’t chopped off any fingers. We make a proper Italian meal. For antipasti, there’s fava-bean crostini, stuffed eggplant, oven-cooked lemons, farro (spelt) salad and courgette carpaccio.
For primo, we make tagliatelle with cherry tomatoes – so easy, I probably couldn’t burn it if I tried. Secondo is puntine di vitello (veal breast), another simple recipe with few ingredients: veal, potatoes, tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, salt & pepper, and a dash of white wine. For dolce, we have crostata, a jam tart.
Afterwards, we enjoy the fruits of our labour beneath clear skies. For hours, we eat and chat as the light slowly fades, leaving the stage to shooting stars and fireflies flitting across the bushes.
Practicals
Would you like to try a cooking course in this timeless part of Italy? La Tavola Marche offers various courses throughout the year.
- Getting there: The nearest airport is in Ancona.
- Getting around: Hiring a car is the easiest and most flexible, but there are also busses. Ashley or Jason will pick you up at the bus station in Piobbico.
- Other interesting things in the neighbourhood? Just like San Gimignano in Tuscany and Assisi in Umbria, Le Marche has its own UNESCO World Heritage hilltop village, Urbino. As is to be expected in Le Marche (for now, anyway), Urbino is not overrun with visitors and advertising. Also, the province has ancient fishing villages, beautiful beaches, festivals, and gorgeously wild scenery.
Disclosure: I was a guest of La Tavola Marche. As ever and forever, all opinions are deliciously my own.
Oh Italy. Love everything about there, especially the food. Would love to get some Italian cooking lessons.
It’s a fun way to spend a few days.
Delicious…
Delicious is right.
You’ve got my mouth watering and I plan to sign up as soon as I can fit it into my schedule. Love this post!
You’ll have a fabulous time, I’m sure 🙂
This post gives a very good sense what Italian food is all about. Marche is amazing region. Much less touristic because the majority of people goes to Tuscany. Lack of crowds is a huge advantage, I think. I enjoyed my stay in Marche very much. I have fabulous memories from there: slow life, slow food, slow everything. Love it!
Loved Marche.
Sophie,
You’re killing me. I’m starving – which should be easy to solve in Quebec City but I don’t think I’ll be finding any foods that look like they’ve come from a warm garden. And it’s freezing outside and I just want to eat exactly what you cooked without leaving my hotel room.
This place looks like a little slice of heaven and surely after hours in a kitchen you can whip up some great meals when you get home and show your kids a thing or two. I’d LOVE to visit.
Hope you do visit 🙂
I drooled over every single word of the is most delicious read! I would love to go to cooking school in Italy..how fortunate you are my friend! And those pics capture the tastes of Italy and bring them to life…perhaps a little too well? LOL! I loved this article and now pining to return to Italy even more!! Thank you.
I think you’d enjoy this cooking course, Jeff 🙂
OH LE MARCHE! On our first trip to Italy we saw the big three cities, and took a week to drive through Le Marche, principally because we could find very little about it on line. I always tell people just what you did–no t-shirt shops and no tour buses. It is heavenly!!
So glad you like that out-of-the-way province, too.
All these delicious food photos is torturing me at this late hour. What a great experience for you, Sophie. I’m almost inept in the kitchen and I’m sure my family would love for me to do this too. Loved seeing everything you prepared and it’s such an inspiration to try this soon.
Glad I’m not the only one 🙂
Judging from the photos you seem to have learned a lot. Both about food and about cooking. Had to look Piobbico up on a map. How long did it take to get there from Ancona?
I came in from Umbria, but leaving, drove towards the coast and Ancona. If I remember correctly, it took about 1.5 hours. About 45 minutes inland from Fano.
Italian cooking lessons sound like a fine idea – although I’m fairly certain that my own cheeky daughters would declare them wasted on me as well! That white pizza looks absolutely delicious!!
Loved pizza bianca 🙂
This is one region of Italy I’ve been wanting to visit. I love that the food is served on such beautiful Italian ceramics.
It’s a bit off the beaten track, for sure, but worth the effort.
Wonderful cooking experience in such a beautiful place. Of course, the food pics have my mouth watering, but the scenes of Le Marche have me a little teary-eyed remembering my time in Emilia-Romagna last year (another of Tuscany’s lesser known neighbors). Ah, Italia!
Ah, indeed…
This is absolutely amazing, Sophie. I’m getting close (a few more years) to getting my world travels on and you just dialed me up another notch! Thank you, dear 🙂
You’re welcome 🙂
I love Tuscany, it’s such a beautiful region. How I miss the Italian food and wine. What an amazing experience.
Tuscany is very beautiful, and so is Umbria and Marche – with gradually less tourist infrastructure (in a good way, I think) as you travel east.
I should have read this after I had lunch! My mouth is drooling and my stomach is grumbling as I sit here at my desk. Marvelous article and great photos (well-excluding the cattle). Thanks for sharing!
Hope you had an Italian lunch. 🙂
Italy is a great place to be for food. Mmmmm! All of the food looks amazing. Thanks for sharing. 🙂
🙂
Wow mouth watering post !!! I love Italian food specially a Italian cheese 🙂
The cheeses…yum!
My dream travel and food experience 🙂
You’d love it, Stephanie 🙂
Italy and the food are so beautiful. I’ve just returned from Bologna and your post is making me want to see more of this country.
Beautiful! I’m not sure what impressed me more: photos of nature, or food.
This looks like an incredible way to spend time in Italy, and that pizza looks amazing!!
🙂
I very much enjoyed reading your Le Marche adventure, you captured beautifully the essence of the region. I love the fact it’s not tourist driven, Italy as it has always been, we enjoyed a family day of truffle hunting (then eating) in the mountains.
My beautiful daughter was married in a stunning old farm house Casa Olivi near Treia a year ago. I take my hat off to her she not only found this amazing location but sourced all the most beautiful regional fare and wine. A Michelin star chef from Macerata came for the evening and transported his staff to the farmhouse, the food will never been forgotten neither watching my daughter (the bride) walking out of the farmhouse by the pool towards family and friends with the backdrop of the olive grove, vineyard and rolling hills leading to the ancient stone town of Treia on the hill with the band playing Rolling Stones ‘She’s like a Rainbow’ my heart melted and the world stood still, I have memories from Le Marche I will hold dear forever, a very special day and a very special place. ????????????
Wow, Lynette! Sounds like the absolute perfect wedding!
Cooking in Italy, what a dream! All of this food looks extremely delicious, especially the pizza. Each time I’ve visited Italy, I always leave 10 lbs heavier but 100 times happier.
The pizzas were so delicious!