Is Italy vegan friendly?

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With the vegan lifestyle spreading around the world, Italy is also adapting to this philosophy. For this reason, in general, you can easily find vegan dishes in the main Italian cities.

Tuscany in particular has a pretty vegan friendly cuisine. If you visit Tuscany, you should feel pretty at ease with its menu, as it is mainly naturally vegan.

The dishes of the local tradition are simple and mostly based on vegetables.

The main vegan friendly Tuscan dishes

As we stated previously, the main dishes of Tuscan traditional cuisine are vegan.

The ones you should not miss are:

  • Ribollita: a bread soup made with leftover bread and many vegetables as cannellini beans, lacinato kale, cabbage, carrot, potatoes and onions.
  • Fagioli all’uccelletto: baked cannellini beans with garlic, sage and tomato sauce.
  • Pappa al Pomodoro: tomato, bread, garlic and basil soup with some extra virgin olive oil.
  • Pasta and beans
  • Bruschetta with tomatoes and basil
  • Castagnaccio: a typical Tuscan dessert made with chestnut flour, raisins, pine nuts, walnuts and rosemary.
  • Cecina: a vegan and gluten free street food made with chickpea flour, water, extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper.

These are just a few of the local, typical Tuscan dishes that are vegan friendly!

Be careful!

It is true that you will have no difficulty finding excellent vegan food, however there are some things you should be careful about.

Some of the dishes that most people think are vegans, they might not actually be. It is local habit to add lard or other animal derivates in the focaccia, pizza bianca, coccoli (fried pizza dough) or even schiacciata con l’uva (typical Tuscan dessert made with grapes).

For this reason, it is certainly better if you have a local vegan guide, expert in Florence vegan hot spots.

Enjoy your vegan food in Florence

Italy, Tuscany in particular, is a very vegan friendly place, with a lot of local vegan food.

While you visit Florence and Tuscany, enjoy the traditional vegan Tuscan cuisine matched with some great vegan wine, a must for every visitors!

 

Italian Vegan Wine Donuts

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Ingredients

  • 1 glass of White wine
  • 1/2 glass of Brown sugar
  • 1/2 glass of Seed oil
  • 2 teaspoons of baking powder for cakes
  • about 5 glasses of flour n.1 or n.2
  • Sugar (to decorate)

Preparation

Prepare the italian vegan wine donut dough:

  1. In a bowl, combine the seed oil, white wine, sugar and instant baking powder. Incorporate the flour a little at a time until you get a moldable mixture. It will take about 5 glasses of flour.
  1. Remove a small piece of dough, shape it into a thin cord and close the cord on itself to form a donut.
  2. Pass the donut thus obtained in the granulated sugar and then place it in a baking tray lined with parchment paper.
  3. Repeat the procedure for all the donuts until the mixture is used up.
  4. Bake the vegan wine donuts in a preheated oven at 180 ° C for about 20 minutes depending on the power of the oven. Since there are no eggs, the donuts will only turn slightly golden. 

These vegan wine donut are better enjoyed dipped in a nice glass of  italian vegan white or red wine.

 

 

 

Are all wines vegan?

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Let’s clarify one thing: not all wines are vegan. Not all organic wines are vegan. All biodynamic wines are not vegan with some exceptions, because they normally use propolis and ox horn. So what is vegan wine?

What is in wine that is not vegan?

It is a very common practice to use numerous ingredients of animal origin up to 70. In the vineyard with the use of fertilizers such as cow dung and maybe even from cows locked up in intensive farms.  During the wine clarification and stabilization process, all these substances can be found:

  • carmine, which is a red dye of crushed insects, especially the crushed bodies of pregnant female beetles
  • Gelatine (fish bladder), jelly (cow’s feet, knees, horse’s hooves, pig’s feet, animal bones and tendons),
  • Albumin (egg or blood),
  • Honey
  • Chitin, (derived from the shells of crabs, lobsters or other crustaceans),
  • Eggs
  • Natural charcoal,  another term for bone charcoal
  • Pepsin (an agent derived from pigs),
  • Glycerol monostearate (produced by the degradation of animal fat)

Some ingredients of animal origin also used as additives to the wine itself.

Can vegans drink wine?

Yes of course, but you have to make sure they are vegan certified like our wineries.

Vegan Vacation Time, guarantees that all wineries we have been collaborating with for years and claiming to produce vegan wine have made a written declaration in this regard. They are wineries that we visit daily, controlling both the winemaking and the aging cellar.

What does it mean to clarify a wine?

Clarification refers to the process by which numerous organic components are removed such as polyphenols, benzenoid sulfides or copper ions, proteins with the aim of making the drink clearer and stabilizing the aroma and flavor.

In conclusion, when you drink a glass of white, rosé or red or a sparkling wine, be very careful if you are vegan.

 

 

Italian Vegan Cecina and Zucchini trifolati

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Cecina is a dish from the Tuscan tradition, mainly from the Maremma coast. It is a savory tart made with chickpea flour, which is a few inches high.

The origin of the Cecina seems to date back to the thirteenth Century and in particular to a battle between Pisa, who was defeated, by the Maritime Republic of Genoa.

The Genoese galleys, loaded with prisoners, found themselves involved in a storm. In the bustle some barrels of oil and chickpea sacks spilled, soaking in salt water.

Since the supplies were what they were and there was not much to choose from, they recovered as much as possible and the sailors were given bowls of chickpea puree and oil. Some sailors refused to eat them and they left the mixture in the sun, which dried it in a kind of pancake. The next day, driven by hunger pangs, the sailors ate the preparation and discovered its delicacy. Once back on the ground, the Genoese thought to improve the improvised discovery, cooking the puree in the oven. The result pleased and, to scorn the defeated, was called “the gold of Pisa.

This dish is perfect, paired with a glass of Vernaccia di San Gimignano, a dry white wine. The first white wine to receive the Doc appellation back to 1966.

How to make the Cecina:

For the Cecina:

  • 80 gr of chickpea flour
  • 240 ml of water
  • olive oil
  • salt
  • pepper
  1. Mix the chickpea flour with water, adding the water little at a time to avoid the formation of clots. Add a pinch of salt and some olive oil, then let it rest overnight.
  2. Preheat oven to 200° C (392° F), grease the bottom of a baking tray (26 cm/10 inches in diameter) with olive oil. Mix the batter to make it homogeneous and pour it into the baking pan. Put it in the oven for 20-25 minutes and finish with 3 minutes in the grill.
  3. Remove the tray from the oven and let it rest for 5 minutes before cutting it. Serve it with plenty of freshly ground black pepper. As an alternative, you can cook it in a pan like an omelet.

For the Zucchini:

  • 4 zucchini
  • olive oil
  • salt
  • mint
  1. Wash the zucchini, cut them in half for the length, then in slices. Brown them in a pan with some olive oil, 2 tablespoon of water and a pinch of salt. Cook it with the lid for the first 10 minutes, then make it dry and finish cooking with a tablespoon of chopped mint.

To serve hot and Buon Appetito!

 

Vegan Pumpkin mustard

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Vega Pumpkin mustard
250 g pumpkin pulp
200 g sugar
1 lemon
10 g fresh ginger
1 tablespoon mustard (beans or powder)

Macerate the pumpkin for 12 hours with sliced sugar and ginger, zest and lemon juice.
Boil everything, let it cool and repeat the operation two more times. Finally add the mustard.
Mix everything and … taste!