Awakening in Percussina

A spring letter from La Pia

Awakening in Percussina

One moment the sun warms your face. The next, a cool wind moves across the hills and you pull your coat closed at the neck.

March, as the Tuscans say, is a little pazzerello.

Walking between the vines, you see the hills turning a deeper green. The soil softens under your feet, and each step carries the quiet squish of wet grass.

Marzo, a La Pia.

After the winter pruning, the vines stand in formation. Aligned and waiting.

Look down instead of up.

The vineyard floor wakes first. Wild grasses and small flowers appear, and bright yellow mustard stretches toward the sun.

Soon, the first germogli arrive. Now they’re small, green, almost unnoticed.

On the table, schiacciata fiorentina. For a few weeks, it is everywhere.

A simple cake, long part of Florence’s traditions, it was invented in the kitchens of the Murate convent.

At La Pia, Marta follows that tradition.

Eggs, sugar, a little oil, freshly squeezed orange juice.

Schiacciata Fiorentina is a low, flat cake, no more than 3cm tall. It’s finished with a soft layer of powdered sugar.

From the ricettario

As Marta makes it:

INGREDIENTS:

250 gr of 00 flour

125 gr of sugar

1 egg

9 tablespoons of milk

4 tablespoons of olive oil

1 squeezed orange and orange zest

1 bag of baking yeast (meglio se vanigliato)

A bit of butter to coat the baking tray

Powdered sugar

Cacao for designs

Set oven to 170 degrees C (heat from on top and below)

In a bowl, mix yeast and flower

In a separate bowl, mix egg and sugar

Add the milk, oil, orange juice and zests

Slowly add the yeast and flower, through a sieve

Place in oven for approx 15-20 mins, the cake should turn golden.

Let cool and then finish with a soft layer of powdered sugar.

⸻

When the schiacciata Fiorentina is on the table, we know what’s near.

Pasqua con chi vuoi.

Pasquetta insieme a noi.

And we’ve added something of our own.

An American tradition, an Easter egg hunt, set among the vines and through Il bosco de’ La Pia.

Children run ahead, already searching for eggs tucked into places you wouldn’t think to look.

For them, it is simple.

For us it is something more.

The gates open.

And slowly, the season begins.

La Pia wakes again.