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"Is there dessert?" the guests wonder, as the end of a dinner party approaches. How is it that dessert has
this function of pure gratification, while other foods have not?
Sugar, the raw material and the source of sweet taste, was until relatively recently, a rare and precious
substance. In the past, honey was used as a sweetener, while cane sugar, which came to Europe after the great
discoveries of the new lands, was, up to the eighteenth century, a luxury reserved for the table of kings and
princes. It was common to see knights and ladies carrying tiny, precious boxes, in which their equally precious
sugar tablets were jealously kept. Then in 1747, a German chemist succeeded in extracting sugar from beets, and
during the nineteenth century it began to be commercially produced forming part of everybody diet. And so, Tuscan
cakes and dessert must be divided into two areas: the ancient and the modern. The oldest sweets were created as
variations, or improvements to, bread and bread dough. This can be clearly seen from their names: Pan Pepato,
Panforte, etc.
In more modern dessert and cakes, the use of sugar is taken for granted, and the emergence of more elaborate and
complex recipes marked the beginning of true pastry making and confectionery in Europe. But in the Tuscan cooking,
the traditional homemade, "plain but good", sweets and cakes continue to predominate. These are classic family recipes,
made by the women of the household rather than great chefs.
Sweet dishes are related to the farmer's calendar, local festivals and the work in the field. Castagnaccio, a chestnut
cake, Pane dei Morti, bread of the dead, were always baked in November. There are cakes or dessert for Christmas,
Carnevale, Easter and harvest time. The end of every season and working cycle is an occasion for finishing a meal
with a special sweet dish.
