A very Renaissance Dessert

Today I am baking a "Lucca Ring Cake". The recipe dates back to 1483, and is a simple yeast cake with raisins and aniseed.

As a prior student of Renaissance History and daily life, it filled me with excitement to think I am cooking something that Lucrezia Tournabuoni may have eaten (I assume she didn't cook it herself, what with the slaves back then...).

It reminded me of the study tour I did in Tuscany six years ago where we ate at a restaurant in Siena with medieval recipes... The original gnocchi recipe involved cheese rather than potato.

But Lucca especially is a fascinating city. With one of the still standing full city walls that wrap around the city in a ring, and the Piazza Anfiteatro -  an oval shaped public square, this city can seem a quaint and like a near medieval disney land for tourists seeking the sights, smells and general experience of an Italian town. However, Lucca rivalled Florence for power, and wars were fought from the walls with Siena and Florence. However, after the 1300s it was passed around between the Genoese, Florentines, Pisans and Veronese like a venereal disease.

I once met twins at a school who were in Kindergarten - their names were Siena (female) and Lucca (male), I wonder if the parents knew how much fighting occured between them.

But back to the Lucca Ring Cake, it is currently happily doughy and resting under a tea towel.

Daisy

Lega Sud

Many of you would know about the Lega Nord, the crazy right wing political party in the North of Italy that wants to cut the peninsula in half to separate the north from the south. The reasons for this are based on economics and immigration from North Africa.

I however, after eating food from 4 regions -  Piedmont, Liguria (actually Liguria was good), Valle D'Aosta and Lombardia - have come to the conclusion that I would like to create a culinary Lega Sud, where Italian food focuses on the regions of the South and separates itself from the North. The Northern cuisine, afterall, is focused on French cuisine, with far too much butter and not enough tomatoes or oil.