Getting someone in Italy to give you a recipe is not as easy as you think.
Take for example, Castagnaccio, a chestnut flour cake. I was visiting my friends' home in Sienna and they were going to show me how to make Castagnaccio, a typical dessert in several regions of Italy(more about that later).
Their directions: Take some chestnut flour, add water and mix till the consistency is right. Easy for them to say. Midway during the mixing they pour in some olive oil(the only fat-no butter anywhere in this cake). Then they added orange rind, pine nuts, and raisins.
Undaunted I looked on the package of chestnut flour. It said take chestnut flour and add water or milk till you get a dough. Add some olive oil, pine nuts, and raisins. Put in a cake pan.
Must be such a traditional recipe they are just filling up the back of the package with a requisite but semi unhelpful recipe.
Now about the 2 different toppings. My friends are from 2 different regions of Italy. Sienna is in Tuscany and Bedonia is north west of Florence, between Parma and the Mediterranean Sea. The Tuscan version is topped with pine nuts and rosemary. The Bedonia version is topped with sweetened ricotta. Both were delicious.
