The Kitchen
Casa Faustina's Kitchen
The menus of Casa Faustina are based on typical Umbrian and Italian cuisines with an added Mediterranean flair. The kitchen here utilizes Casa Faustina- grown produce and herbs as well as products from nearby farms, chosen carefully in order to support local agriculture. Casa Faustina serves a variety of fixed menus, including traditional and vegetarian buffets. A few simple acts performed in the kitchen transform meals into extraordinary feasts, such as dressing many dishes with our very own extra virgin olive oil right before serving. This simplicity helps bring out the fragrances and tastes of the high quality ingredients utilized at Casa Faustina. Some examples of the kitchen's simple yet fresh approach to cooking are delicate pumpkin cream soup, tomato sauce made directly from the garden, and of course, the class bruschetta of toasted bread with garlic, salt and olive oil.
Other dishes proposed are various Umbrian spreads on freshly toasted bread, a selection of locally produced pecorino cheeses - fresh and aged, fresh strangozzi - a typical Umbrian pasta, served with porcini mushrooms and truffles, Umbrian onion soup baked with Italian bread and melted cheese on top, radicchio quiche, and 'torta al testo', or Umbrian bread baked on a stone, with sausages and wild herbs, along with many others. All of the meals are accompanied by a young and aromatic Sangiovese house wine or guests are welcome to choose from a selection of the best Umbrian wines.
For breakfast a rich buffet awaits guests and includes milk, coffee, tea, juice, cereals, fresh fruit, yogurt, butter, toast, croissants, homemade jam and cakes such as Yogurt Bundt Cake, and fruit cakes.
The dining room is generally reserved for guests of Casa Faustina. It is open during high season (i.e. Easter, New Year), high season weekends and for groups year round. During low season, the dining room is open only for a minimum number of reservations. Breakfast is available year round upon request.
Products
Casa Faustina is situated in the center of a 16 hectare naturally managed farm. Giordano and Tamara, the owners of Casa Faustina, are interested in permaculture, natural agriculture and any growing method that is in accordance with the environment because they consider men, animals, plants and the earth as one harmonious ecosystem.
Casa Faustina guarantees that no chemical substances, fertilizers, weed killer, fungicide, insecticides, pesticides, or genetically modified organisms are used on the farm or in the production of the high quality extra virgin olive oil.
Casa Faustina's award-winning extra virgin olive oil can be purchased directly from the farm. Tastings are offered to every guest. Giordano and Tamara's passion and care for the 1,300 olive trees surrounding the house is definitely felt when the couple share stories and explain each step of their olive oil production. The olive harvest occurs in November and usually lasts about one month. The harvest is a team job where every individual is important. While it may be demanding and exhausting at times, the harvest always provides great satisfaction to everyone involved. It is possible for guests to participate in the olive harvest as observant tourists or volunteer workers. Please contact Giordano and Tamara for more information.
The truffle is the speciality of the kitchen at Casa Faustina and is collected in the farm. Including truffles in some of the delicious dishes served at Casa Faustina adds special flair to the meal. Also, products from the vegetable garden, including tomatoes, various types of lettuce, beans, pumpkin, cabbage, zucchini, aubergines, peppers, radicchio, chicory, rucola, green beans, and fennel, all have traveled close to zero kilometers to arrive on guests' plates. Overall, the use of seasonal produce directly from Casa Faustina's garden helps save energy and respects the environment.
Guests are welcome to search for aromatic herbs like mirto, sage, thyme, oregano, maggiorana, rosemary, basil, santoreggia, parsley and many others scattered in the garden. Wild herbs like calendula, fennel, borragine, chicory and rose also grow around the farm. Casa Faustina uses most of these herbs to create its classic tomato sauce amusingly referred to as 'cento aromi', or 'hundred herbs'.
Agricultural Policies
With the knowledge that every human interaction and exchange should be based on trust, transparency and respect, we believe that it is not necessary to give a third party the power to certify our products. Since we try to live our lives out of respect and honesty and believe that every individual is responsible for his or her own actions, we feel that only we can claim the quality of our products. For the past eight years, Casa Faustina has been under the control of certifying authorities who have labeled us as an organic farm. While we hope that organic agriculture continues to spread throughout the world and of course we support the efforts of all those involved in helping this happen, we have decided to opt out of the Italian organic certification system for the following reasons: In order to have your products labeled as 'organic,' farm owners are obligated to pay a private certification agency. This results in a conflict of interest for both parties because the certifiers merely become salesmen of an organic brand and we become mere consumers, able to buy a label even though our belief in farming organic goes beyond marketing or consumerism. This results in horrible bueracracy instead of a reliable service for testing actual organic agricultural practices. It is rare for one of these certifiers to actually research the use of organic practices on each farm and the quality and real substance of the product are ignored and a simple paper certification becomes the focus.
We do not need a label to reassure us of our organic status since we are deeply committed to allowing the natural ecosystem to determine our farming practices. In accordance with our firmly rooted principles, we wish that the direct relationship between the client and the farmer to be one of trust and not merely a market (consumer -producer) relationship. This results from the two parties adopting an agriculturally conscious and holistic view that claims man and earth are connected in a symbiotic relationship where man plays an important role in the ecosystem instead of simply exploiting the earth and its resources.
