Agritourism at the Fattoria di Maiano in Fiesole, Italy outside Florence by Ruth Paget
My husband Laurent and I were invited to the Fattoria di Maiano in Fiesole, Italy high up in the hills above Florence by J., one of my college roommates at the University of Chicago during our honeymoon.
When I talked to J. on the phone, I told her I would find out how to take the bus to the central piazza in Fiesole from Florence, so her dad would just have to drive us back at night to our hotel.
Laurent and I loved having a dinner engagement to get to by bus. We went to a large bus stop by the Duomo, the cathedral, and found out the bus to take along with the correct fare for the bus to the zone where Fiesole was located.
Back at the hotel, I called J. and told her the time we would arrive and the bus number we would be on. I loved peeking into gardens and yards on the way up to Fiesole.
I was feeling very much the European citizen for using the bus to go to the suburbs. At the appointed time, we got off the bus and greeted J. and her parents and took BMW rental car to the restaurant. J.’s mom said she was going to take the bus downtown and go to museums.
When we arrived at the Fattoria di Maiano, we sat in the garden and began our farm-to-table meal. J.’s mom told us she was taking cooking classes at the Fattoria. She had been waking up early to make saltless Tuscan bread before the heat set in. She was going to markets to buy seasonal products to go with pasta and buying many delicious ready-made meals at the farmers markets. Everything was drizzled with the Fattoria’s wonderful and healthy olive oil.
I thought J. and her family traveled in grand style from San Diego, California to Fiesole. They flew from LA to Switzerland where they rented a car and drove to Fiesole for a month of organic food and wine lessons.
J.’s dad ordered dinner while her mom asked how we had traveled to Italy. We took charter flights from the US and had Eurail passes. On our month-long honeymoon we were visiting art museums.
The University of Chicago did not allow double majors, but I had done all the course work in both East Asian Studies (my major) and Art History. I was the honeymoon tour guide, especially since I had studied Italian Renaissance Art with Professor Earl Rosenthal. I showed J.’s mom the Let’s Go Italy guide I had published by Harvard for planning historical walks as well.
As we nibbled on minced liver crostini, we talked about the artwork at the Uffizi, the Bargello sculpture museum, the Pitti Gallery artwork, and Michelangelo’s David at the Academy.
Our primi pasta course arrived, which killed off most of the conversation. The pasta was fettucine with sautéed tomatoes, spinach, yellow squash, and seasoned with rosemary, thyme, garlic, and fine grain sea salt in a creamy sauce.
J.’s dad remarked that cooking with the seasons seems to mean sautéing what’s new at the market, adding it to pasta, and serving it in a cream or tomato sauce.
“Seasonal food is also supposed to be abundant and lower priced,” he remarked.
I think he was suspicious of pyramids of glossily shined tomatoes and zucchini.
He was waiting for the secondi.
“You can’t go wrong with bistecca alla fiorentine and Chianti,” he said as we all prepared to eat large steaks from Chianina beef with expensive Chianti – no straw encased bottles here. The steaks had sea salt on them with large drizzles of viscous, green cold press extra virgin olive oil made at the Fattoria di Maiano.
The steak was a first-class experience.
Our contorni, vegetable course, was a mound of organic baby greens with oil and vinegar dressing.
I was merrily eating and remarked as we looked at the lights in Florence below, “I am not sure how to get back to our hotel from here.”
Neither did Laurent. The churches of Florence were all illuminated along with their piazzas. “Each church is a neighborhood with streets radiating out around it like the spokes on a wheel,” I remarked, using information I had learned in art history.
We picked out the Duomo and the Santa Croce neighborhood where we were staying. Laurent suggested that J.’s dad drive us to the Duomo and we would do the rest of the trip on food. We would call from the hotel to let them know we had arrived.
This is a great memory I have of Europe, but Americans can now do agritourism in many parts of the US.
For example, I live in Salinas, California now, which has a large farmers market on Saturday mornings. The farmers market closes down a huge portion of Main Street. This is a great spot to buy basic organic ingredients with a few food trucks.
Another spot for agritourism happens on Wednesday nights at Northridge Mall in Salinas at the Farmers Market that has 100+ food trucks and food stalls. This market reflects the multicultural diversity of the region. It is a great place to try ethnic food at a reasonable price.
There are many ways to do agritourism including walks with picnics, cooking classes, olive picking, fishing, grape harvesting, grape stomps, visiting fish markets, going to a brew pub for a meal, learning to make jams, learning to bake various items, winery and brewery tours, winery tour by stagecoach, and hayrides.
All of these activities create jobs in the countryside, which is always welcome, and an incentive to seek out agritourism when traveling.
The Fattoria di Maiano has been in operation for more than 40 years doing activities like these providing lessons for all of Europe and the US on how to make money by promoting the best practices of the countryside.
Monterey County also has many opportunities to do agritourism including spa options.
Happy Touring!
Fattoria di Maiano Website follows:
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
