Crespina: cookery, nature trail, wild edible herbs for a very nice family from England to Tuscany...and our Bruschetta recipe!

Wild Edible herbs have been a great discovery for me.

My cuisine would not be the same without the colors and aromas encountered in the Tuscan countryside. My walks are always dedicated to the collection of edible herbs and edible flowers.

2 opportunities!

I am pleased to inform you that if you come to Tuscany you have two possibilities:

Come to my Dolce Vita Bed and Breakfast and Cooking School near Lucca. It will be fun to go for walks together and collect herbs to cook them at the school.
Take a course in the Pisan hills of a nature trail and cooking edible herbs and flowers. You can read all details here: Herb Gathering Course

Bruschetta and Wild edible flowers

Collecting Wild Edible flowers and herbs in Nature

It’ll be not so easy to forget yesterday’s nature trail and cookery about wild edible herbs.

The walks, the woods, the paths, the wonderful Nature around us. Our “students” on holiday in Tuscany were a family this time: mum, dad, and two beautiful little girls aged 6 and 8.

Under a herbalist’s guidance and supervision, we collected any kind of edible herbs along the way and some fruits too: in August, in Tuscany indeed, you can collect sweet and juicy blackberries!

Every time, during this cookery course, we’re learning something more about this world that many people don’t know.

What we did the last time

Once arrived at an old country house, or better ancient (it’s aged 1760) inside the wood, we prepared our lunch with herbs and flowers collected and we enjoyed the fruit of our labor.

Cooking and Eating what you can easily find in nature is an indescribable satisfaction: you don’t have to go to the supermarket, but just have a walk in the countryside, you don’t have to pay anything, just leave the roots and respect nature and its rebirthing process. And what’s more important: your life will be healthy because of lots of mineral salts and vitamins with which you feed yourself!

Well, what about our lunch?

Bruschetta with extra virgin oil, garlic, and wild spicy flowers (amazing)

Organic Pasta, tomatoes (the garden is just behind the house), and wild fennel

Baked Panzerotti with wilds edible herbs collected (sorrel, sowthistle, naked weed, dandelion…) and tomato sauce

Ice cream (custard and cream) sprinkled with mashed blackberries we found along the way and sugar.

Everything obviously, “washed” by an organic delightful white Tuscan wine!

Pasta and wild fennel

Panzerotti with cheese and wild herbs filling

Wild Flowers Bruschetta:

INGREDIENTS (6 people):

1 pound (500 gr) unsalted bread, possibly one day old. Here in Tuscany, it’s with a crunchy crust and a compact crumb
1-2 sprigs of Lesser Calamint. This is perfect, but any other herb you have will do just fine)
1 small bunch of edible flowers
To taste Salt
3 Garlic cloves
To taste Extra Virgin Oil (very good quality to obtain an amazing bruschetta)

Cut an unsalted bread (slice: 1/3 inch thick and 2-3 inches long; 1cm thick and 6-7 cm long) and count 2 slices for a person.
Put 5 or 6 slices in a pan and put them on the fire. Be careful because they burn in a moment.
Turn the slice to the other side and wait until they become dry and golden. Continue in this way with the others.
Rope the slices with garlic (just one side)
Cut some sweet tomatoes (Piccadilly, san Marzano…) into very thin slices.
Put some extra virgin olive oil in a pan with some “nepitella” (lesser calamint) leaves and, as it’s starting frying, turn off the fire
Season the bread slices with salt, this amazing flavored oil, and the tomatoes
Garnish with some cress flowers
Bruschetta is ready