A Travelers Account of Tuscan Bread

When I got to Tuscany I had heard about the Tuscan Bread a lot, and I had also tried it sometimes in some Italian Restaurant where I live, but it didn’t compare to the description that my friends had given me about Tuscan bread as it’s made in Tuscany.
So, my trip to Tuscany started out (after having settled in a beautiful villa near Siena)in a nice restaurant in Siena, at Trattoria da Divo. The dishes were gorgeous, but the thing I wanted to try was the oven baked Tuscan bread: it was DELICIOUS!!

The owner of the restaurant is a very easy-going lady that happens to know a lot about Tuscan bread. She told a little about the ancient origins of the Tuscan bread. It seems like it started from the baking of acorn flour, and eventually developed to the modern state (made of wheat and other cereal flours) around the year 1100. The peculiarity of Tuscan bread is that is the only Italian bread made without salt. The owner of this restaurant in Siena has told me that the Tuscan bread changed over time due to a war between Pisa and Florence (Pisa is on the sea and would not ship salt from its harbors to salt the Tuscan bread). Also, salt used to be very expensive, henceFLorentine bread bakers decided to save money doing without salt. In my opinion Tuscan bread is good that way, as Tuscan food is so tasty itself.

The usual shape of Tuscan bread can be round , flat, or oblong. This bread can last up to aweek and still be good. This is due to the fact that Tuscan bread has to be brick-oven baked, and goes through a slow raising process, slowly cooking afterwards. This way of cooking Tuscan bread comes from the fields of Tuscany, when farmers were really poor and baked a large quantity of Tuscan bread at once. This way they could preserve it wrapped in clothes for months and go through periods of famine, rigid winters, and wars.
A good way to recognize real Tuscan bread is by observing the white, which should be very “bubbly” and each bubble should be medium size.