Everyone knows the Palio, the horses' race for the 2 July and the 16 of August in Piazza del Campo in Siena, but only if you are just from Siena, from inside the town you can understand the meaning of the Palio. For people living outside the town, like me, this race is just a beautiful festivity, for the senesi, instead, the Palio is a matter of life and death, or at least of happyness or desperation. These beautiful cups represent the seventeen contradas, and if you give own contrada's cup to a contradaiolo, a person belonging to that contrada, you can offer also poison to him and he will drink it anyway and be sure he will find him delicious!
Choose another contrada

Here cookers are called ciottoli or tegami. Tegami are the earthenware ones, which if they fall down they will break. My wife has broken many of them, but luckily she got many because today they are fashionable. She use them to make roast beef on the oven and for this purpose she got a bigger one for those all-family meals during holidays, when she put a lot of food into it so that it's always enough for all.

This is a very special pot. It is used to cook potatoes into the oven and instead of put them into a baking tin or alone, you can put them into this pot and close it, without add anything, neither oil nor other flavours. The potatoes get ready just like those we cook under the ash, but here you don't need to wait someone makes a fire!

There are such things that if they look better they taste better. I enjoy showing everything in a nice way so I put an effort in a nice arrangement of my things: it is never a casual way. To follow the manners one should serve a nice dish of cold meats, cheeses, in oil sauces or black crostini (round small slices of bread with paté) in a dark coccio plate so that eating it will be much more enjoyable.

Earthenware is the best to keep fresh water or wine, so that by coccio crockery you can have both: beauty and a better taste of what is kept inside which, I recommend, it should be a good wine!

I should say truly that we never had, when I was young, such serviti (crockery), we had very few but nice coccio crockery, because once the china crockery was only for upper classes and we, peasants, had just few porcelain coffee cups used for important guests. But nowadays coccio crockery is very fashionable remembering us those old times. This nice jug could be used to put in milk, coffee or tea for breakfast.

This nice big jar is used to keep the biscuits, but one could put in what he likes because this jar can be kept in every room of the house. If you have children at home, or they came and go often, you can also keep in some toffees or chocolates. Or, keep it empty for show.

This jar can be used to keep in sugar: be sure that, getting that gasket, nothing else will come in, neither dust nor dampness. Anyway such a pretty jar is a waste to use as a sugar bowl…

This crockery is perfect for holidays or party occasions, but it can also be used for simple cuisine, such as tuscan one. The salad bowl can be used for pasta dish, which in our homes is always there, especially in holidays!

In this crockery you could find nice plates which can be used together with the salad bowl. The bowl is useful for soups and vegetable soups, as well as pasta. You can add the jar too to bring water so it will be a really nice table!