This is it. A steaming great bowlful of one of the great Tuscan local specialities. None of that fancy restaurant stuff. This is peasant food, just the thing to warm you up on a freezing winter day. Stale bread, cavolo nero, beans, onion, garlic, any other vegetables you happen to have lying around, and maybe some ham. All slowly boiled for hours (<a class="zem_slink" title="Ribollita" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribollita">ribollita</a> means 'reboiled' in case you were wondering).

<a href="http://davidhewson.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/imag0001.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-6228" title="Ribollita" src="http://davidhewson.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/imag0001.jpg?w=640" alt="" width="640" height="383" /></a>

Yes, I know it looks like something the dog sicked up (that liquid bit is virgin olive oil by the way, so stop shaking). But this is real Italian food, not the tarted-up, artsy fartsy fancy rubbish you see touted on the telly by blokes waving their arms around too much. Blokes who describe something as Tuscan just because they've shoved some beans in it.

Ribollita also has a certain connection for me, one of those Proustian prompts for an <a class="zem_slink" title="Involuntary memory" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Involuntary_memory">involuntary memory</a> I get each time I see it. Let me tell you the story...

<!--more-->Eight years ago I found myself in a small Tuscan town <a href="http://davidhewson.com/2010/01/08/porchetta-and-people-where-characters-come-from/" target="_blank">trying to hunt down the character who became Gianni Peroni</a>, an important fellow in the Costa books. It was very much a last-minute journey, one that involved booking a small apartment for a week in what turned out to be a vast and slightly rundown mansion. The only other occupant was a charming elderly Tuscan lady who was obviously renting out bits of her family home to make ends meet.

At the time I didn't know Italy much beyond Rome and Venice, two very international cities. I assumed the rest of the country was pretty cosmopolitan. How wrong could I be? My caring new landlady was puzzled from the moment I arrived. Why, she wanted to know, was I a man travelling alone? How could I possibly cope when it came to matters such as food and washing?

I assured her that for a week the washing wouldn't be a problem, and as for food... Englishmen could handle that, honestly.

The next day I found outside my door a very ancient cooking utensil much like a bucket. It contained about two pints of home-made ribollita. Pranzo, lunch, the landlady explained.

I thanked her profusely, ate some of it gratefully and disposed of the rest. Later that day I bumped into her -- she had a habit of always being in the corridor when I came and went -- and she asked how the ribollita was. Delicious, I said, giving her back the now empty bucket. But I begged her please not to go out of her way to provide  any more food. I was capable of coping (and this was Tuscany, really I was).

The next morning there was another bucket of ribollita outside the door. I ate a bit of that one and begged her again: please, no more soup.

To no avail. The following day there was the bloody bucket again with the selfsame bloody soup.

Now I'm not picky about food honest. But I've rarely found myself thinking, 'I know, I fancy something <em>boiled</em> right now.' Let alone, 'God I could murder a bowl of something that's been boiled twice over.'

But by this stage the woman was watching me like a hawk and she was such a sweetie at heart I really didn't want to offend her. I snuck in my own food so that she didn't think I was being unfaithful to her daily bucket of ribollita. That I drained carefully in the kitchen, separating bread and vegetables from stock, then patted the solid stuff dry into a lump and smuggled it out in plastic carriers  hidden inside my shoulder bag, and, when I was sure she wasn't following me, dumping the contents into the nearest rubbish bin I could find.

I still think she knew though. In fact at times I was convinced she'd sometimes followed me from the house to check what it was I kept dumping in the rubbish bins, not the mansion dustbin I was supposed to use (where she would have checked and found it -- no doubt about that). Before I left she was giving me that look from time to time. The one all males know. The one that says... <em>men...</em>

God knows how much unwanted ribollita I smuggled out of that place. It must have been a gallon or more. And after a little while the stuff began to haunt me. I could sense it a mile off in a restaurant, that smell, that sloppy consistency. It always made me shudder. I haven't eaten it since, honest.

At least not until now, in Florence, where you'll find it everywhere (this was in a very busy Oltrarno restaurant called Casalinga). Eight years on I finally found the courage to try it again (the fact I was cold, wet and hungry probably helped).

And... it's fine. Rather as you'd expect stale bread, stock, ham and vegetables to taste really. If I have to wait another eight years for a second bowl I won't feel cheated, honestly.

Just to punish myself I followed it up with one of those Italian offal meat concoctions which the Florentines in particular love. Here I give you the delicacy known as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotechino_Modena" target="_blank">cotechino</a> with pureed potato.

<a href="http://davidhewson.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/cotechino.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-6234" title="cotechino" src="http://davidhewson.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/cotechino.jpg?w=640" alt="" width="640" height="382" /></a>

What was that like? Beautifully prepared and served, exactly as it should be. I found it quite disgusting. Sorry.