Recipes and photography by Mario Matassa unless otherwise stated
The Tuscans are incapable of wasting food, and this is never truer than when it comes to bread. Indeed, the Tuscans have probably invented more ways for using up leftover bread than they know for using fresh bread.
Celery, both the wild and cultivated varieties, has been used in Italy since before Roman times. Most commonly, chopped cultivated celery is fried with onions and carrots to make a soffritto that can be used as the base for many different soups and sauces. Celery is also used as a principal ingredient in soups, to make dumplings, or can be simply battered and fried and served as an antipasto.