Flavors
The Farm Tourism "La Casa Bianca" offers its guests flavors from the Tuscan cuisine, in particular, those typical of Casentino.
Casentino cuisine has a scent of the woods and hidden behind the family recipes, all of the work of the shepherds, bandits, and friars of the many monasteries that have watched over this valley can be perceived.
Each dish describes the winter vigils, the gathering of wild herbs and mushrooms, the skill of being able to organize oneself for the long, cold season or the trips to the lower pastures.
The recipes are still made by families today and use milk, flour, herbs, clever seasonings, beans, chickpeas, and other produce from cultivated land. These are important resources and local identities that tradition connects to religious occasions (Christmas and Easter) or to the importance of agricultural or artisan works.
Chestnuts
Chestnuts, right from the medieval period, have represented the principal food source of the valley.
The once ample chestnut groves suffered a strong decline due to the depopulation of the mountain.
Casentino's pecorino cheese
Pecorino cheese is made by using sheep’s milk that is either uncooked or pasteurized right after milking, cooled, filtered and poured into a boiler heated to 37 degrees Celsius, to form a curdle, with the addition of curdle that has been extracted from the calf’s stomach.
The dough is then put through a mill and at the end of this process, the cheese is ready to be salted and placed on word boards in aerated rooms.
The fresh pecorino is ready in 20/30 days while the aged one can take up to 120 days.
Raveggiolo (cheese)
Raveggiolo is a soft, white, and delicate cheese with a slightly sour taste that’s made by heating raw sheep’s milk with powdered natural curd (dried from a lamb’s stomach or fig latex) that is heated to 37 degrees Celsius.
The curd cheese is then put into containers, salted on the surface, and left to rest for a few hours. It is then ready to eat.
Scottino and Lattaiolo
Scottino is usually eaten for breakfast and is prepared by putting a piece of stale bread in a container with hot ricotta cheese and buttermilk (remaining liquid from the cheese making process).
Lattaiolo is considered the antecedent to "crème caramel" and is made by boiling milk and sugar. Once it has cooled, a whisked egg is added with some vanilla flavoring or coriander.
Casentino ham
Casentino ham is a controlled brand since 2004.
After slaughtering and a 24-hour refrigeration period, the pig legs are seasoned with salt, garlic, and various spices such as pepper, hot pepper, nutmeg, and crushed juniper berries.
After about 3 weeks, the salt residue is removed and the ham is left to mature another 40/50 days.
According to tradition, the ham was once hung next to a fireplace during this drying phase so that it would acquire a slight smoked taste of oak, beech and juniper.
The aging process lasts at least 18 months.
Santa Maria's soup
Santa Maria’s soup is usually made in June and October for the feasts of Saint Anthony and the Holy Mary that take place at the Sanctuary of Santa Maria del Sasso in Bibbiena.
The soup was originally prepared by women, but eaten, exclusively by the men who worked in the nearby farms, in the refectory of the sanctuary.
The ingredients include chopped meat, hardened chicken skin, chicken segments, broth, grated Parmesan cheese, toasted bread, butter, extra-virgin olive oil, salt, and pepper.
The meat, instead, is cooked and chopped and served on the toasted bread with the broth and grated Parmesan cheese.