The Focaccia Odyssey of Lucca

At the tender age of 16, I was lucky enough to visit the gorgeous Tuscan city of Lucca with my very generous parents. A walled city, famed for its beauty, culture and food. There we spent three blissful days; wandering the narrow alleyways, feigning engagement at museums, and climbing the various bell towers that dot the skyline of this bucolic town. Given that I was a teenager, however, the overall beauty of Lucca hardly registered. None of that really struck a chord with me. If it wasn’t skateboard related, I likely didn’t care. Thus, it seemed fated that I’d be leaving Lucca without truly registering how special it was. Like the privileged little boy that I was, I’d be leaving the Renaissance-era city entirely blind to its charms - a Philistine to the last. That was, until, my mum handed me a piece of focaccia bread.

The Focaccia Odyssey of Lucca

Mum’d just been out for a walk, likely needing some small reprieve from the experience of hauling two adolescents across Europe. Leaving me at the apartment with Dad and my younger sister, Mum returned a short time later holding a small, paper wrapped bundle. I’m positive that it was raining at the time, a desultory deluge of truly European proportions. Yet, in through the rains came Mum, unwrapping the unknown treat and placing it on the table. We saw that it was focaccia. Plain, Ligurian style focaccia bread. Nothing special. Lightly salted, and warm to the touch. Given that I was 16 at the time, I probably said something dripping with ill-begotten weltschmerz. However, hunger won out and we all broke off corners of the bread and began to eat. And that is where teenage perturbation ceased. The flavour was out of this world. Salty, spinachy, and so perfectly fluffy. I’d never eaten anything like it. It was only a piece of bread, yet it tasted portentous, as if the entire point of travelling to far flung destinations could be contained within its doughy confines. As I sat there chewing, a part of me knew that nothing would be the same again. The bread seemed to have an effect upon mum and dad as well. Immediately after finishing it, we all agreed to find some more the next day.

However, ill-fortune bore down upon us. For those whom have been to Lucca pre-smartphones, this experience will be familiar. Lucca is a rabbit-warren of twisting alleyways, churches, and general poor urban planning. Contained within a medieval wall, the beautiful city is a photographers dream, but difficult to successfully orient yourself within - most alleyways look the same - frustratingly beautiful, yet uniform in their serpentine wanderings. Thus, it is very difficult to find tiny Italian bakeries after you’ve left them. Once you turn a corner, you may as well be within a garden maze. Try as we might, we could not find the bakery. It simply wasn’t there - I choose not to apportion blame at this point. After wandering without luck, we returned to our apartment defeated, footsore, and weary. No focaccia in hand. While I did not yet understand it, this would be a turning point in my life. As we caught the train out of the city the next day, a hunger was borne in me. I knew I needed to get that focaccia again. I didn’t yet know why, but I just needed to have it. I suspect strongly that this was the very moment my lifelong love of travel began. Over a piece of bread.

In the ensuing years since leaving from Lucca, I graduated from puberty (pass-conceded), mercifully ceased listening to the sub-genre of music known as ‘pop-punk,’ and successfully avoided buying a white-picket fence style property. I travelled. A lot. Through South-East Asia, Australasia and South America. In fact, when not being frittered away on clothes, the majority of my money in the 12 years between visits to Lucca was spent on travel. Writing now, I know why I travelled so widely. It wasn’t for life-altering experiences. It wasn’t for some misattributed experience of wanderlust (is there a more loathsome and poorly understood word in the English language?) It was for the focaccia. I wanted to find that focaccia. I just didn’t understand it, and thus, mistakenly continued to buy plane tickets, continued to backpack, but never in the right direction. I needed to return to Lucca.

Manorola, In the Cinque Terre National Park.

This past winter, however, luck was on my side. I was now travelling Europe by campervan with my partner, Carlie. We had just spent a week in the gorgeous climes of the Cinque Terre National Park, and had agreed to visit Lucca. When I saw how close we were by map to Lucca, I expressed such platitudes;

Lucca, in all its splendor.

‘Carlie, the city is beautiful.’

‘Carlie, it’s a medieval walled city. We have to go there.’

‘Carlie, it’s of supreme cultural significance to the Tuscan region.’

However, what I should have been saying was;

‘Carlie. I ate some focaccia bread there 12 years ago, and it’s haunted me ever since. In fact, I think all of my time spent overseas in the past few years has actually been a misguided attempt at satisfying the need for this particular focaccia bread from Lucca. I need this bread. I need the bread Carlie.’

I did not say the above. Perhaps it’s better not to explore the perverse ways we all seem to cling to our youth. Writing this even seems dangerously nostalgic. How do you explain that the main reason to return to what many consider to be the most beautiful city in all of Italy is to find a piece of focaccia bread? However, I suspect she knew. She knew that we were visiting Lucca for reasons beyond either of us. Beyond mere church visiting, pizza eating, apperitivo quaffing. Our mission, in short, was to find the focaccia - whether I voiced it or not.

A day later, we were parked up outside of Lucca. Even in the rain, the city was still beautiful. The walls encircling the old town remained enjoyable to explore by bike, and the tree-topped Tower of Guingi continued to afford one an enthrallingly panoramic view of the red terracotta tiled roofing of the city. In my heart of hearts, though, these experiences were mere shades compared to our real purpose. I knew there was only one thing to be done in this city. The Focaccia was calling - cultural immersion could wait.

What ensued was a surreptitious exploration of every bakery in town. I tore us away from yet another startling beautiful church and directed us to the closest bakery, Paniko Lucca. Focaccia lined the shelves. I hesitantly pointed at several and asked for a slice of each in haltingly horrific Italian. Taking a bite, I knew it wasn’t right. It wasn’t salty enough, there was no subtle kick of spinach. The all-too-good taste of focaccia in my mouth only served to dampen the ashen taste of defeat on my tongue. I knew my challenge had only just begun. On our way to the Guingi tower, a clever ruse I employed to direct us to the next bakery, I chewed the bread, now mere fodder. We made our way to the next location I had in mind, Carlie now bewildered by my seeming monomaniacal dedication to finding the right rustic Tuscan bread. With good humour, however, she accompanied me to Forno a Vapore (no decent focaccia on offer), Pinelli Bakery (excellent salted focaccia, but no spinach) and Forno Francesco Casali (spinach focaccia, but not quite right). We threaded the cobblestone alleyways, driven by my sheer impulse for the right bread. The focaccia I ate along the way was excellent. Extremely tasty even. Ultimately, though, it just wasn’t right. It didn’t taste like a memory from my late adolescence. So we searched on.

After climbing the Bell tower of Saint Michael (which I solely used the higher ground to scout for bakeries) and assessing the mummified corpse of Saint Zita in the Basilica of San Frediano (to whom I beseeched for mercy in my plight) we stopped for an apperitivo at Plaza Napoleone. The spritz I drank was merely sustenance for the continued search. However, given that bakeries close at sunset, my search was forced to conclude for the day. As we walked back to our van I spied a small pizzeria out of the corner of my eye. Halting before it, I saw focaccia bread with the necessary ingredients. Spinach, salt, and being warmed in the oven. Like a man possessed, I handed the proprietor euros, casting the errant coins at him in my bid for the focaccia. As he handed it to me I breathed in. It smelt right. Eyes shut, bracing for impact, I took a bite.

‘Is it the one?’ asked Carlie.

I chewed, thoughtfully masticating the gorgeously fluffy focaccia bread. After a moment I paused.

‘Its close. But not right.’

She consoled me, using a level of empathy far beyond me to sympathize with my plight. Finishing the focaccia, we returned to the van, ready to make a fresh assault on the remaining bakeries of Lucca the next day.

We resumed the search in the morning. Knowing that I had less than 12 hours in which to find the focaccia, I’ll admit to feeling despair. I began to wonder, ‘Will I ever find the bread? Will I know happiness after this? Who am I without this bread?’

We trudged on. Back and forth across the city. We even rented bikes to aid us in the search. Circumnavigating the town, via the town walls, I spied several likely sources. Picking one at random, I pulled up out the front, and gingerly opened the door. There, in the glass display case at the front of the shop, sat something that looked promising. It was focaccia all right. It was salted. It looked crusty. Willing it to be so, I bought a slice. Biting into it, I knew that I had struck gold. While it wasn’t the same, it was as close as I was going to get. It tasted wonderful, as if I was time-travelling by flavour alone. Then and there, I became the gangly, awkward adolescent once more. The salty, warm focaccia the vessel for my transport. It wasn’t exactly right - there was less of a spinach undertone, too much salt. Yet, somehow, it was spot on. To describe it as heavenly would be to do a disservice to the focaccia. Grinning stupidly, I offered some to Carlie. She too enjoyed the bread, but gave up her portion to me. There is no medal of honour worthy of such a sacrifice, but it shall be remembered. I advise both the Queen and Governor General of Australia to devise a medal for civilians whom sacrifice excellent food to their significant other: for this, I shall put her name forth immediately.

I was satisfied. I had tasted excellent focaccia, had explored a city with Carlie that we both agreed to be stupendously beautiful, and was looking forward to heading north to Modena the next day. Yet, something didn’t sit right. As we returned to our van later that evening, an itch overcame me. How could I settle for something that caused me a borderline religious experience, but yet, wasn’t exactly right? I simply couldn’t. A perfect simulacrum of my adolescence was what was required, and I knew I needed to get it. Yet, by this stage the sun was setting, and every bakery in town was closed. As we settled back into our campervan for the evening, I started to mope. I’m not proud of it. Ashamed even. Yet, mope is what I did. What else does one do in the face of such ignominious defeat? As I sipped a wine, safely ensconced within the van, I gave in to the fact that I would never find this focaccia again. I bid farewell to that latent 16 year old, lurking away in my subconscious.

Later that evening, however, we both grew hungry. A trip to the local supermarket, ‘Conad’ was called for. As we wandered under the tungsten glow of the supermarket, we happened upon the bakery. There, beneath a glass case, sat row upon row of focaccia bread. Focaccia en olio, focaccia en proscuitto, focaccio en tomate. I scanned the rows hurriedly, discounting those sub-prime focaccia combinations that I knew wouldn’t do. I passed over focaccia with potato, focaccia with egg, focaccia with plain salt. Madly I scanned the rows of bread. My heart began to beat faster. Surely this was the time! Surely now, amidst such utter defeat, I’d find the focaccia I so ardently sought. I happened upon a likely choice. It was plain, obviously salted, and called ‘Focaccia Della Santina.’ I knew the conditions were less than optimal, but I pointed to it, and asked the attendant for a half slice. Carlie ruefully shook her head behind me, knowing how dangerously close to focaccia overdose I was taking this. Yet I paid for the bread, feeling certain in my heart that I’d struck gold. I can’t say where this certainty sprung from, but as we walked back to the van, the focaccia a lukewarm talisman in my pocket, I knew for sure that this was the one. It had to be.

When we arrived back to our van, I tore off the packaging. History was repeating. Instead of my parents providing the bread, I was now bringing the bread home. I felt like an adult; fully certain that I was surely about to self-actualize. Carlie and I split the focaccia, each taking a bite. She watched me, waiting for my reaction. Salty, yes. Warm, indeed. Excellent on flavour. very, very tasty. I chewed further. She watched, expectant. It was not the right focaccia. I opened my eyes and shook my head disconsolately. There was no spinach. A crucial ingredient was lacking. I finished the chunk I was chewing on, knowing that it was no good.

As I write this now in the hours following the great hunt and eventual defeat, my thoughts have turned maudlin. Will I ever again taste this focaccia? Is my youth now entirely over? Should I stop wearing vans sneakers? Should I stop traveling to buy a house, complete with Labrador and white-picket fence?

No answers come forth. I suppose there aren’t answers to these questions. Perhaps it doesn’t even matter. This is the stuff a great novel is borne from. Maybe this will fuel my writing to some actually worthwhile end? I doubt it. I’m still thinking about the focaccia, days later. The focaccia is like a childhood memory, perfect and sepia toned in every way, and gradually slipping further and further from my grasp. I will never get that bread again. I will turn 30 soon. These things are implacably true. In my mind then, the only thing that matters is that this focaccia still exists, somewhere. I have to believe that it is so. There must be a Tuscan baker out there right now, cooking up another batch of this unattainable treat. I have to believe in this. While I may not be the next one to eat this focaccia, I am sure that someone out there has had the celestial baton passed to them in this great focaccia relay race we all must partake in. They don’t even know what they’re in for yet.

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