Crostini di Fegatini alla Toscana

In every trattoria in Tuscany, before the pasta arrives, before the bistecca, there are crostini. Small toasts spread with this dark, rich mixture that tastes of the earth and the farm. Chicken livers are peasant food, the parts that cost nothing, and Tuscan cooks have always known how to make something extraordinary from what others discard.

The anchovy dissolves and disappears. You will not taste fish. What remains is depth, that quality the Italians call sapore, which has no precise English equivalent. The vin santo adds sweetness without being sweet, a whisper of dried apricot and honey that balances the mineral richness of the liver. The sage, because this is Tuscany, and sage grows everywhere and belongs in everything.

Americans are squeamish about liver. I have watched students approach this dish with suspicion and leave converted. The secret is not to overcook. Pink in the center. Silky, not grainy. This is not your grandmother's chopped liver, if your grandmother made the heavy, gray version I have encountered in delicatessens. This is something else entirely.