Schiacciata con l'Uva

Schiacciata con l'uva is a typical sweet of Florence and the surrounding Chianti hills, made during the vendemmia and traditionally tied to the wine harvest and rural autumn festivals. Its roots are popularly traced back to the Etruscans, who farmed this part of Tuscany and were great winemakers — a frequently repeated tradition rather than a documented fact. It belongs squarely to cucina povera: bread dough left over from baking, the season's wine grapes, oil and a little sugar, made when grapes were abundant and cheap at harvest. The traditional grape is Canaiola, a small sweet black variety long used in Chianti wine, though sweet strawberry grapes are now common. It is a strictly seasonal bake, sold by Florentine bakeries and pastry shops only from about September to late October.

A flat, chewy bread base turned jammy and wine-dark where the baked grapes have collapsed into it. The grapes burst between the teeth in bright bursts of sweet-tart juice — winey, faintly tannic from the skins, deeper and more aromatic than table grapes — against the plain, faintly salty, olive-oil-scented dough. Sugar and oil on top caramelize to a glossy, slightly crisp surface; the bottom soaks up purple juice. With Canaiola or strawberry grapes there are seeds, and crunching through them is part of the rustic character. The contrast of chewy bread and soft, sweet, slightly tannic fruit is the whole appeal — homely and not too sweet, more harvest bread than cake.

This is a lean bread dough baked under a heavy load of fruit. The dough is a simple olive-oil bread, leavened and stretched thin, so it bakes up chewy rather than rich. Whole grapes are pressed in and scattered on top; in the oven their skins split and they release their sugary, acidic juice, which both bakes into the surrounding crumb — staining and flavouring it — and, with the added sugar and oil on top, caramelizes at the surface as the water boils off and the sugars brown. Wine grapes are chosen over table grapes for a reason: they are smaller, far sweeter, more aromatic and more tannic, with thicker skins that hold shape and concentrate as they cook, giving a deeper, winey result. Stacking a second layer of grapes between two sheets of dough keeps the interior moist and fruit-heavy while the top crisps. Using the grapes whole, seeds included, is traditional and part of the texture.