The boom of the tavern business occurred at the end of the 19th century. The tavern keeper became the friend of everyone and the osteria a second home. People went there to eat and drink but that was only a pretext. The real reason for the steady flow of customers was a desire to get together, to gossip, meet friends, play cards, sing and tell tall tales.
The tavern keeper served his wine and in Tuscany fiaschi (straw-wrapped bottles) on the table became the icon of such places. The food was simple and what was available that day was put on the table.
Service was slow and there was no rush. Soups like ribollita or pappa al pomodoro simmered over the fire for many hours and there was no concern over time frittered away.
The years passed and the times and requirements changed. In the sixties, Italy enjoyed an economic boom. People went out to the movies and the theater or joined cultural circles to discuss world issues. Or they went to dances and to the restaurant to eat the intriguing nouvelle cuisine.
The old osteria with those unfashionable tables and walls yellow from smoke, the tavern keeper with his apron spattered with drops of red wine have all vanished.
People are seeking novelties, trendy places where they can hear jazz and drink from large crystal goblets.
But fashion always comes around again and what seems passé will flower once more as a modern revision.
Since the middle of the nineties, the osteria has been in vogue once again. Frenetic lives and plasticized foods offered by the big food-processing companies have given the tavern an aura of incurable nostalgia. Today’s wanderers want to savor old and authentic flavors, inhale odors that take them back in time to when they were small and remained for hours in the kitchen playing among the aromas of homemade pies and sauces cooked at length.
The osteria today is where you can slowly masticate the past.
The rat race made us blind consumers for years but it is perhaps thanks to the capacity of some competent tavern keepers that we have returned to the old familiar path, which has never been forgotten.
In Tuscany and especially in Chianti, there are many old taverns dating to the last century. In these places, it is possible to plunge fully into the spirit of the territory through consumption of a cuisine that is strongly linked to tradition. Few elements were necessary for a return to the splendors of old refuges for wandering customers: wooden tables, marble bar tops, impressive tavern keepers and a lot of wine to divert guests on nights of easy-going revelry.
Leonardo Romanelli
