Tuscan Legume Cooking: Cicerchie, Ceci and Bean Recipes from the Cucina Povera Tradition

Tuscan cooking is built on legumes in a way that few other regional cuisines in Italy are. Before refrigeration and affordable meat, ceci (chickpeas), cicerchie (grass peas), cannellini, and borlotti beans provided the bulk of protein across the region, particularly in the inland areas away from the coast. This is cucina povera at its most literal — food developed by necessity that turned out to be genuinely good. The three recipes below are all traditional Tuscan preparations that happen to contain no meat, not because they are trying to be vegetarian, but because legumes were the point.

The Legumes

Cicerchia (Lathyrus sativus, or grass pea) is one of the oldest cultivated legumes in Italy, grown continuously since at least the Roman period and still produced in parts of Tuscany, Umbria, and the Marche. It looks like a flattened chickpea with an angular edge. Cicerchia contains good levels of protein, B vitamins, and minerals, but must be soaked for at least 24 hours — changing the water several times — before cooking. The long soak is not optional: it removes compounds that accumulate with daily consumption in quantity. For occasional use in soups, standard preparation is sufficient.

Ceci (chickpeas) are the most widely used legume in Tuscany and appear in soups, pasta dishes, and stews across the region. They need 12 hours of soaking. Cannellini and borlotti beans are softer and cook faster; cannellini are the bean of choice for the classic Fagioli all’uccelletto preparation below.

Zuppa di Cicerchie

A dense, nourishing soup built around cicerchie with sautéed celery, onion, potato, and tomato, finished with rosemary and sage. The potato adds body without thickening artificially.

• Soak the cicerchie for at least 24 hours, changing the water several times
• Finely chop 1 onion and 2 stalks of celery; peel and dice 2 potatoes; roughly chop 1 tomato
• In a large heavy pot, brown 2 garlic cloves in olive oil, then remove them
• Add the onion and celery; cook over medium heat for 10 minutes until softened
• Add the potatoes, tomato, and drained cicerchie; season with salt and pepper
• Cover with vegetable broth and bring to a simmer, adding more broth as needed
• Add a sprig of rosemary and a few sage leaves; cook for 1 hour until the cicerchie are fully tender
• Remove the herb sprig and serve hot with a drizzle of olive oil and grilled bread

Pasta e Ceci

A thick chickpea and pasta soup that sits somewhere between a first and a second course — too dense to be just a soup, too liquid to be just pasta. This is the dish that fed most of rural Tuscany through winter for centuries. The chickpeas are partially blended to create a creamy base, then pasta is cooked directly in it.

• Soak the ceci for 12 hours with a pinch of bicarbonate of soda; rinse well
• Cook the ceci in fresh water with a sprig of rosemary until completely soft — about 1.5 hours
• Meanwhile, make a simple tomato sauce: brown 2 garlic cloves in olive oil, add crushed tomatoes and a second rosemary sprig, cook for 20 minutes
• Once the ceci are cooked, drain them (reserving the liquid) and blend about two-thirds in a food processor until smooth — the result should be thick and creamy
• Return the blended ceci and whole ceci to the pot; add the tomato sauce and enough cooking liquid to make a loose, soup-like consistency
• Bring to a boil, add the pasta (ditalini or broken spaghetti), and cook until done
• Serve immediately — the pasta continues absorbing liquid and the dish becomes very thick if left to stand

Fagioli all’Uccelletto

The name means “in the style of small birds” — the same garlic, sage, and tomato preparation used for small roasted birds in Tuscany is here applied to cannellini beans. Despite the name there is no meat. This is a Florentine preparation, eaten as a side dish alongside grilled meat (making it a contorno rather than a main course), but it also works as a standalone dish with good bread. Terracotta is the traditional pot; it conducts heat more gently and the beans hold their shape better.

• Soak the cannellini beans overnight; cook in plenty of unsalted water until tender — about 1–1.5 hours depending on age of the beans
• In a terracotta pot (or heavy-bottomed saucepan), warm olive oil with 2 garlic cloves and 4–5 sage leaves over medium heat until the garlic begins to colour
• Add 200g of peeled, roughly crushed tomatoes; cook for 10 minutes until the sauce begins to thicken
• Add the drained cooked beans; season with salt and pepper
• Cook together for a further 15 minutes, stirring gently — the beans should absorb some of the tomato sauce without breaking apart
• Serve hot directly from the pot; a drizzle of raw olive oil over the top finishes the dish

Notes on Sourcing and Timing

• Cicerchie: Available at specialist food shops and online; less common in supermarkets outside central Italy. Buy from the current year’s harvest if possible — older dried legumes take significantly longer to cook
• Soaking: Cicerchie need 24 hours minimum; ceci 12 hours; cannellini 8–12 hours. All should be cooked in fresh water, not soaking water
• Salt timing: Add salt only after the legumes are already tender — salting at the start toughens the skins
• Olive oil: Tuscan olive oil is the correct oil for all three of these — it is grassier and more bitter than Ligurian or Sicilian oils and stands up to the earthiness of the beans