Livorno

Livorno is the most cosmopolitan province in Tuscany. It is so by birth: the city was designed by the Medici in the sixteenth century as a free port, and the Leggi Livornine (1591 and 1593) were among the first charters of religious tolerance in Europe, calling to Livorno Sephardic Jewish, Greek, Armenian, Dutch, French and English merchants. A city made on purpose to be mixed, and one that has never since stopped being so.

The territory of the province is a long, narrow Tyrrhenian strip that starts at Castiglioncello and runs down to the promontory of Piombino. But above all it is the province of the archipelago. Elba, Capraia, Gorgona, Pianosa, Montecristo — seven islands that form one of the most important marine parks in the Mediterranean. The province of Livorno is the only one in Tuscany with a wholly maritime identity: port, coast, archipelago.

The Colline Livornesi separate the coast from the inland. A band of pine woods, olive groves and Mediterranean scrub, where the wines of the Tuscan coast are made — Bolgheri DOC above all, which in thirty years has become one of the most important denominations in Italian wine. Castagneto Carducci, Bibbona and Sassetta have become reference names in top-end oenology.

Piombino, in the south of the province, is the opposite case to Castiglioncello in the north: a historic industrial zone, a national steelmaking centre until the 2000s, today an area in slow conversion. The story of Piombino is the story of Italian heavy industry, but also of the ferries to Elba and of a rocky coast of rare beauty.

Elba has an identity of its own: agricultural, mining, seafaring. The iron mines of Elba were worked from Etruscan times until 1981. Today the island lives on tourism, specialised agriculture (Aleatico DOCG above all), fishing and small-scale boatbuilding.

The cooking of Livorno is one of the most recognisable in Italy, and the credit goes to the sea. Four centuries as a free port have deposited here Arab, Jewish, Levantine and Anglo-Saxon flavours — all reworked in a Tyrrhenian key.

Cacciucco. The fish soup of Livorno follows a precise formula: five different kinds of fish (one for each "c" in the word), tomato, chilli, toasted bread rubbed with garlic. It is made with scorpion fish, mantis shrimp, octopus, cuttlefish, conger, smooth-hound or red mullet, according to the catch. A sailors' dish that has become a gastronomic emblem.

Cinque e cinque. The Livorno sandwich, made with torta di ceci (a very thin chickpea flatbread, fried on a plate) and white bread, with a pinch of pepper. Market-stall food, an inheritance of work on the docks.

Triglie alla livornese. Rock red mullet dusted in flour, fried, then finished in a fresh tomato sauce. A simple preparation that has become canonical.

Baccalà alla livornese. Salt cod blanched, floured, fried and cooked in tomato. A variant from the convent tradition of Livorno.

Bordatino. Maize flour polenta, beans, cavolo nero, lardo. The land cooking of Livorno, the counterweight to cacciucco.

The fish of Elba and the archipelago. Smoked mackerel, tuna, amberjack, humble fish given their due. Island cooking has its precise specialities: gurguglione (the vegetable stew of Elba), sburrita di baccalà, boiled octopus.

The wine of Bolgheri. Sassicaia, Ornellaia, Masseto: names that have become world benchmarks. Bolgheri Superiore DOC, Bolgheri Sassicaia DOC. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Sangiovese in a Bordeaux-Tuscan blend.

Aleatico dell'Elba DOCG. A sweet passito wine, made from dried aleatico grapes. One of the least known DOCG wines in Tuscany and one of the most distinctive.

Sweet things. Schiacciata alla livornese (an Easter cake with aniseed and zibibbo), the sweet bordatino of Elba, schiacciata con l'uva from Castagneto.