On a recent trip to Florence, my family and I decided to divide our time between museums and cooking lessons. We thought the two would complement each other since Italy embraces both the eternal and the ephemeral. It's a country that's about art for the ages and art for lunch, about the Leaning Tower of Pisa and pizza, Botticelli and balsamic, Leonardo and lasagna, Michelangelo and minestrone. A thing of beauty is a joy forever—or maybe just for dinner.

The cooking lessons were actually the idea of our 27-year-old daughter, Taylor, who is a whiz in the kitchen. Early in our marriage, my wife, Lesley, and I had agreed that neither of us would cook or do repairs (a recipe for a happy marriage that I recommend). So we were originally unenthusiastic about taking classes that we'd never put to use. But Taylor pointed out that we had spent time studying Italian art even though we never intended to paint Mona Lisa or chisel David. She argued that cooking lessons would be something new, a different vein into the beating heart of Italian culture. Finally, Lesley and I agreed—not because we bought Taylor's arguments but because we wanted to spend time with our only child; she lives on the West Coast, and we're on the West Side of Manhattan.

This is hard for a parent to admit, but our daughter was smarter on this point than we were. Taking cooking lessons in Tuscany turned out to be one of the best things we have ever done, in one of the best places on earth: the Divina Cucina school, which is run by the charming Judy Francini. A native Californian married to an Italian, Judy has been teaching cooking in Florence for more than fifteen years, and she's a great authority when it comes to exploring the culinary side of Tuscany.

Our day at the Divina school began, appropriately enough, at Florence's Mercato Centrale, a sprawling market housed in a huge stone-and-steel construction that covers a full city block. With its two dozen arches, the Mercato—built in the 1860s, when the city was Italy's capital—looks like a massive French train station. After the floods of 1966, it was extensively renovated and a second floor was added.

Before we entered this Cathedral of St. Food, located a short walk from the Divina kitchen, Judy gave us a briefing. She is plump and likable, as cooking teachers should be. Take her course, gain a friend. We were a party of four: my wife and I, our daughter and her boyfriend, Andrew Major.

"In Italy, you look first," Judy told us. "When you see what's good and fresh at the market, you then create your menu. Tuscan cooking is about sourcing ingredients. So let's go shopping."

Our first stop was a meat stand, Simone Manetti's, where Judy introduced us to a very stylish butcher: her hair was coiffed, her lipstick fresh, her pearl necklace real. There was hugging and kissing.

"You're the prettiest butcher I've ever seen," my wife told her, getting into the spirit.

At the next stand, Baroni Alimentari, Judy declared, "You can't shop on an empty stomach." And so we tasted four-year-old Parmigiano-Reggiano and twelve-year-old balsamic vinegar. We also sampled prosciutto from Parma (sweet), prosciutto from Umbria (salty) and culatello ham from Zibello (really expensive). The stand itself, like almost all the others, was as beautifully designed as a still life in the Uffizi. And the characters behind the counters were definitely as memorable as museum portraits.

We met, for example, Riccardo Guerrini, owner of the cow-face stand, who was happy to pose for a picture holding a sample of his merchandise next to his own face. (Stripped of all hair, cow faces look like Hal-loween masks, but they are actually edible.)

Then there were Daria and Ida, the so-called Chicken Sisters, who told us how to stuff a chicken neck before baking it. The dish sounded delicious even if it didn't look particularly appetizing. The chickens on sale at this stand—which was named Polleria Daria & Ida—had their feet attached, because buyers want to see how yellow they are. The yellower the better.

Because Judy escorted us, everywhere we went we were embraced as friends. The Mercato reminded me of a medieval village in the center of a modern city: everybody knew everybody, but newcomers were also welcomed and adopted into the big market family. The wide-open friendliness made me think of the American West, not just as it is now but even more as it was in the old days. I had begun this market odyssey reluctantly, but I was beginning to have a very good time.

"Whoops!" yelled Judy. "Low-flying pigeons."

We ducked, and the birds skimmed over our heads. Leaving the market briefly, we visited the Casa del Vino, a nearby wineshop that also served snacks. We ordered zucchini-eggplant-mozzarella-cream-cheese sandwiches and washed them down with several glasses of red wine. Judy repeated her mantra: "You can't shop on an empty stomach."