Lucca

Lucca is the province that held out. An independent republic until 1799, for centuries it kept an identity distinct from Firenze, from Pisa, from Genova — a small state with its own currency, its own guilds, its own rules. The sixteenth-century walls that still ring the whole historic centre tell that story: fortifications built so as not to be conquered, and which indeed were never conquered.

The territory of the province is one of the most varied in Tuscany. It begins on the Versilia coast (Viareggio, Forte dei Marmi, Pietrasanta, Camaiore) and reaches as far as the Garfagnana and the middle valley of the Serchio, crossing the Piana di Lucca and the Monti Pisani. Every area has its own productive vocation, every area has its own raw material.

The Piana di Lucca is the manufacturing heart: paper mills, a historic textile industry, precision engineering. Capannori and Villa Basilica form one of the most important paper districts in Europe — tissue, technical paper and packaging paper are made here in volumes that few other European territories can match. A quiet but immensely powerful industrial geography.

The Garfagnana is the rural, mountain face: chestnut woods tended for generations, flocks of local sheep breeds, stone mills still turning, cultivated woodland. An area that has kept a slow agricultural know-how, and that is today one of the most important reserves of cultivated biodiversity in the Apennines.

Versilia has an identity different again: marble (in close cooperation with Massa-Carrara), seaside tourism, boatbuilding, sculpture. From Michelangelo onwards, Pietrasanta has been the world capital of contemporary figurative sculpture.

The cooking of Lucca divides sharply: plain, coast, mountain. Three cuisines in one province, three distinct food landscapes.

The cooking of the plain. Tortelli lucchesi (filled with meat, dressed with a meat sauce), zuppa di farro alla lucchese, fagioli all'uccelletto, salt cod with leeks. Robust cooking, not fatty but substantial.

Farro della Garfagnana IGP. Grown between 300 and 1,000 metres. The basis of soups, broths and cold salads. A grain that has crossed two thousand years of the Apennines without changing.

Chestnut and neccio. The sweet chestnut flours of the Garfagnana are worked into necci (thin wafers cooked between hot irons), castagnaccio and pattona. Sweets such as torta di marroni also have their home here.

The cooking of Versilia. Cacciucco viareggino (the local version, different from the Livorno one), spaghetti all'arsella, fish from the small trawlers. Seafood cooking with an identity of its own.

The cured meats of the Garfagnana. Biroldo (a cooked blood sausage with spices), prosciutto bazzone, mondiola of the Serchio valley, spiced lardo. Cured meats from pigs.

Lucca DOP extra virgin olive oil. The hills between Lucca and Capannori produce a sweet, balanced oil with notes of artichoke.

Wine. Colline Lucchesi DOC, Montecarlo DOC. Historic wines of the Republic, though in smaller volumes than the other Tuscan appellations. The whites of Montecarlo (Trebbiano, Vermentino) and the reds of the Colline Lucchesi (Sangiovese, Canaiolo) have a precise character.

The sweets. Buccellato di Lucca (a ring-shaped cake with aniseed and sultanas), torta coi becchi (a herb tart of the farming tradition), chestnut necci.