Lunigiana, land of wolves and partisans
M. and I have traveled to quite a few Italians destinations that are off the beaten track. The lovely city of Ascoli Piceno (in Marche) comes to mind; Basilicata, way down south on the arch of the foot that’s in the boot. We like to be the only Americans for miles and miles. It feels good to hear no English spoken except to each other. But in all our travels, we’ve never before visited a part of Italy as remote as Bagnone, in the Lunigiana, in what Visittuscany.com calls “an extreme territory in northern Tuscany”…although I think what they actually mean is that it’s a territory in extreme northern Tuscany.
But perhaps not! Because the territory has…well…extreme-ness. First, it is intensely mountainous. We were considering renting a place here and staying a while (that’s how much we loved it), but we realized our dog and cat, who get carsick even driving to the Adirondacks, would be full-on miserable here. The Adirondacks are silly little mountains compared to these. On one side you have the vastness of the Apennines; on the other, the Apuan Alps. The roads twist and climb, twist and climb. It’s an old, old place, one that has kept its identity and traditions. I like that.
Why is it called the Land of Wolves and Partisans? Well, there are wolves, and there were partisans, many, during WWII. These brave folks helped the Allied forces hold the not-proverbial line of defense against the Germans in places where only donkeys - not tanks - could be used to haul supplies. The roads today are not much better. I wouldn’t drive a tank on them, that’s for sure.
It was here that we met, and ate, pasta’s ancestor (invented by the Etruscans), a thing of gustatory beauty called Testaroli. It’s a sort of thick crepe with a smooth brown texture on the top side and small air-bubbles on the flip side, and it’s the oldest known recorded pasta in Italy. It’s made with flour, water, and salt, but unlike what we’re used to, Testaroli doesn’t became a dough, but rather a batter that’s poured out onto this huge round griddle. The ones used now are metal; the ancient ones used by the Etruscans were clay.
What does one do when confronted with the world’s oldest known pasta? Eat it, of course, with pesto, since Liguria (where pesto was invented) is just over the hill (mountain) to the west. Just don’t try to walk there: you might run into some wolves, or partisans. More on that in another post.