Cantucci and Vin Santo, Florence, by Shelley Lance
This is the dessert that is served everywhere in Tuscany. Cantucci are sweet dry cookies, also called biscotti. When the cookies are very small, they’re called cantuccini or biscottini. They’re served to you with a glass of sweet dessert wine made from Malvasia and/or Trebbiano grapes called Vin Santo (holy wine). You dip your cookies into the sweet amber wine for a lovely, not too heavy finish to the meal.
Other desserts we encountered frequently on restaurant menus: panna cotta- served either with a berry sauce or a generous ladle of chocolate sauce, or a dessert always described in English as “cheesecake,” though most often it was really a mascarpone tart- usually quite delicious, or gelato, or just a plate of pineapple (”ananas” in Italian).
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