The great Leonardo, an absolute genius in many fields, from artistic to the scientific, was a man with great inventiveness, and all the drawings he left us and who, after centuries, are still current and often used, demonstrate it. But Leonardo was not only this: Leonardo loved good cuisine and loved to show off his culinary skills, even if he often did not meet the consent of his diners!
The fact is rather known that, for a certain period, he worked as a waiter in a tavern near the Ponte Vecchio, the Taverna delle three snails. One day he was proposed a career advancement and this same tavern became a cook. It must be said that his career was rather short: it was a precursor of the times, even in the kitchen. His portions were really tiny and the Cucisine Nouvelle was far from being appreciated, also in preparing his recipes he gave an outlet to his inventiveness, with combinations of flavors that were not very welcome to his guests. This failure, however, did not dampen his ardors for the kitchen, so much so that after some time he decided to open his own tavern, together with his friend Sandro Botticelli, the Osteria delle Tre Rane. Again, his adventure was short -lived. But the love for the cuisine was so much, and deeply rooted, in Leonardo.
He could not break through as chef, but a way to make himself useful in the kitchen had it, and it was one of his best qualities: the inventiveness. So it was that he began to design numerous accessories and tools that could make the profession of cook decidedly easier to perform. They were born from these tools of his tools such as the spit roast, the corkscrew, the chopped garlic, the slicer, the blender, the grinding grind and the slice of egg. He studied the system to always keep the dishes warm and send the bad smells and smoke away from the kitchens, which equivalent to the current water heaters and the hood for aspiration. The indispensable ingredients in the kitchen did not coincide only with herbs and spices (which recommended to always have submissive to season), such as turmeric, saffron, poppy flowers, aloe, cornflowers, scotch broom, mustard oil, flax oil, but also with adequate tools.
If You like this story about Leonard and its passion for the kitchen, we have many other, so if you come in our tour you will have the possibility to discover many original stories about artist and people of Florence. We are official tour guide of Florence and we are running a Florence Free Tour. Our Tour start from the square Santa Maria Novella, in front of Minerva Hotel. please book your spot before you show up.
