Where pici come from
Pici belong to the hills south of Siena (the Val d'Orcia, Montalcino, Montepulciano), and they are old. There is a fresco in an Etruscan tomb at Tarquinia that appears to show something very like them, which locals will tell you about at length and with confidence.
What is certain is that pici are poor food. No egg, because eggs were worth money and went to market. Just the cheapest flour, water from the tap, and the one thing every farmhouse had: time, and a pair of hands. That is the whole recipe, and it is why the shape survived: you can make it with nothing.
How they are rolled
You roll out a slab of dough about a centimetre thick, cut it into strips, and then work each strip under your flat palms from the middle outwards until it stretches into a long, thick strand. The verb is appiciare, and it is where the name comes from.
The mistake everyone makes at first is pressing too hard, which flattens the strand into a ribbon instead of rounding it. The second mistake is chasing perfection. Pici are supposed to be uneven: the fat bits and thin bits are the character of the dish, and a rough, slightly irregular surface holds sauce far better than a smooth extruded one ever will.
What to put on them
Four sauces earn the name. Aglione (a slow tomato and garlic sauce built on the enormous, mild Tuscan aglione garlic) is the definitive one; ask for pici all'aglione anywhere south of Siena. Ragù di cinghiale, wild boar, is the autumn version and the reason pici are thick enough to stand up to it.
Cacio e pepe works beautifully because the rough surface grabs the cheese, and pici alle briciole (toasted breadcrumbs, garlic, oil) is the oldest and poorest of them, and quietly one of the best things in Tuscan cooking. What you will not find on real pici is cream.
Where to eat pici in Florence
Pici are a southern Tuscan pasta, so Florence treats them as a guest from Siena, but a good trattoria will have them on the menu most of the year. Look for pici all'aglione or pici cacio e pepe on a short menu, and look at the strand when it arrives: thick, slightly uneven and rough means rolled by hand; perfectly round and smooth means extruded.
My guide to handmade pasta in Florence covers the neighbourhoods where the real thing is easiest to find. To cook them yourself, here is where to buy fresh pasta in Florence; good dried pici from a Tuscan maker are also one of the few pasta souvenirs that travel well.
