The Italian expression "mangiare alla livornese" indicates the peculiarity of a cuisine born of the masterly combination of the flavours of the sea and the land, and the styles of cooking and legacies of the peoples with whom, thanks to its port, the city has come into contact...

The most outstanding characteristic of the Livornese cuisine is, in fact, that it has assimilated dishes deriving from the culinary traditions of other parts of the Mediterranean. ...

"Cacciucco di pesce", a multiplicity of origins.

There are those who believe that the word cacciucco derives from the Turkish katzuk, which means small - hence small fry - so that it has acquired the meaning of a stew made from odds and ends of fish; others claim it has its origins on 16th-century galleys, where it was served to rowers in chains. Be that as it may, it's the most famous dish of the Livornese cuisine, a medley of ingredients prepared according to a wide variety of recipes, where each cook removes or adds elements depending on how creative they're feeling and what's on offer at the fish market.

flavours and colours of the land

The traditional fish dishes - the mixed fry, the mixed grill or the great variety of crustaceans and molluscs - are frequently served up all along the Costa degli Etruschi with excellent results. But here they also cook fish together with the produce of the earth - tomatoes, other vegetables and sauces. Thus there are such dishes as cuttlefish with chard, salt cod with onion, tomato and potato, or else triglie alla livornese (red mullet in tomato sauce).
The latter is prepared by :
heating, in a sufficiently large pan, a mixture of chopped garlic and parsley in 8 tablespoons of olive oil; as soon as it begins to brown, add chopped tomatoes. Then add the mullet, season with salt and pepper, and cook for about 20 minutes without turning the mullet over, but just moving the pan a little. Before serving, sprinkle with chopped parsley. This sweet-sour wild boar dish must only be made with absolutely fresh mullet. A dish of evident North African origin is couscous, small balls of semolina that are steamed and served with various mixtures, including stewed cabbage and meatballs cooked in tomato sauce. First-course dishes comprise pappa al pomodo-ro (tomato soup with bread), black rice with cuttlefish and a variety of summer and winter soups.
The main dishes in the hinterland, with its woods and dense macchia, are based on game. The most outstanding are ravioli with hare sauce, thrushes with olives, kebabs and grilled or stewed meat, chitterlings and tasty wild boar sausages..
Choose various types of small fish (scorpion fish, sea-hen, weever, smooth hound). Clean well; the smooth hound should be skinned and cut into pieces of 6/7 cm. Also dean molluscs (octopus, cuttlefish) and chop up. In a deep pan, heat several cloves of garlic, sage leaves and red pepper in a glass of olive oil. As soon as the garlic starts to brown, sprinkle with white wine, and, when evaporated, put the octopus and cuttlefish in the pan. After a few minutes add tomato, season with a little salt, add water and continue to cook for another 15 minutes. Finally add the fish and mantis shrimps and simmer for another 20 minutes. The heads of the fish, cooked in broth with herbs, are then pureed and added to the soup. Serve when still liquid on slices of bread, toasted and rubbed with garlic placed in the dishes; accompany with new red wine.
In autumn there are also truffles, mushrooms and a range of game dishes, especially stewed roe-deer with olives and wild boar in sweet-sour sauce. To make the latter, the boar is cut into small pieces, left to marinade in a mixture of vinegar and onions for an hour, then rinsed. Meanwhile prepare a mixture of chopped aromatic herbs, in which the pieces of boar are then browned; add a glass of red wine and a little flour and water. In half a cup of vinegar dissolve a tablespoon of sugar, one of cocoa and a little grated plain chocolate; add a handful of pine nuts, raisins and chopped candied fruit. All this is added to the pieces of boar cooking in the pan. The preparation of this dish is long and difficult, so it's increasingly rare - but the result is the wine route of the Costa degli Etruschi.

Vineyards on the wine route.

These wholesome and very tasty dishes may be washed down with the excellent wines produced on the hills between Livorno and Piombino, which are now much in demand abroad. The main aim of the Strada del Vino della Costa degli Etruschi is to bring this area of great naturalistic interest with its beautiful scenery to the attention of visitors: studded with a series of villages, churches, farms and wineries, this route starts from Rosignano Marittimo and heads towards Cetina, passing along the hill road through the villages of Castellina Marittima and Riparbella. From Cetina it returns to the interior along the scenic road through Montescudaio, Cuardistallo and Casa-le Marittimo, in Pisa province. It then descends towards Bibbona and takes the picturesque road through Bolgheri to Sassetta, Suvereto and Campiglia Marittima, before following the whole of the Val di Cornia to Piombino (information: Consorzio Strada del Vino della Costa degli Etruschi, loc. S. Guido 45, Bolgheri, tel. 0565 749768-749705). The most northerly DOC wine is Montescudaio, grown in the communes adjacent to the village of this name, between the rivers Era and Cecina. The true promoter of the local viticulture was Gherardo della Gherardesca, who, at the beginning of the millenium founded the Benedictine convent of Santa Maria at Montescudaio, endowing it with many vineyards and olive groves. Established in 1970, it's one of the emergent DOC wines and is produced as a red, a white and a vin santo. Although the wines of Bolgheri have now been awarded DOC status, they owe their success above all to Sassicaia and to Ornellaia, the precious creature of Ludovico Antinori.

Sassicaia, a world-class wine that was first marketed in the IB 1970s, was originally produced in the Bolgheri area on the San Guido estate. Facing the sea, this belonged to Marquis Mario Incisa della Rocchetta, the well-known owner of the thoroughbred Ribot. After various experiments with Cabernet Sauvignon aged in cask, the expert oenologist Giacomo Tachis obtained the special French touch that has made Sassicaia one of the greatest wines in existence. Different vines and types of wine are found in the most southerly DOC zone of the Costa degli Etruschi. The careful selection of the vines has notably improved the production, so that, of the three DOC wines, it's the only one that has a Riserva, with at least three years ageing. The red should be drunk with meat, game and cheese; the rose with pasta dishes; and the white with fish and soups.