Gastronomic traditions
at Turin
Prestigious still and famous sparkling wines
Good eating and drinking are two pleasant activities traditionally held in great esteem at Turin and in Piedmont, so dealing with them in a brief summary will be difficult indeed. We shall try nevertheless, by referring to the many publications on the subject, well aware that we shall be accused of many an omission, gap and inaccuracy.
Gastronomy
Around a table Gianduja's offspring is generally temperate by nature but
a lover of good eating and drinking: a gourmet, not a gourmand. This is
why Piedmontese gastronomy differs from the French, despite the similitude's
some are wont to find due to our geographical vicinity. The French in fact
are fond of complicated and refined food that satisfies the eye before the
palate, while a Piedmontese's tastes are simple, so the cuisine is sincere,
tasty and strong.
Most of Piedmontese cuisine's fame comes from the quality and genuineness
of local produce, thanks to the region's many-faceted geographical configuration
of plains, lakes, hills and mountains. A typical part of Piedmontese cuisine
is hors d'oeuvres, the generous use of butter, the consumption of
crude vegetables, sanato (a few months old Piedmontese calf fed only on
milk) and the generous sprinklings of truffles.
All eating tastes and needs can be fully satisfied around a Piedmontese
table with typical regional produce. From vermouth-aperitifs to the many
hors d'oeuvres and the rich and tasty first and second dishes accompanied
by the famedgrissini Torinesi breadsticks (the petits bâtons de
Turin Napoleon was so fond of), by tasty cheeses (8 of which D.O.C. controlled
origin), followed by delicious fruit and various and imaginative pastry
sweets, from hazelnut tarts to Gianduja chocolate, egg-flips,
from the (galup or gluttonous type) panettone basso to hazelnut torrone
nougat, all washed down with excellent red and white still wines (44 D.O.C.
and D.O.C.C.) and sweet and dry sparking spumante wines, the region is famed
for. At meal end, a digestivo of various bitter or cinchona flavoured
wines, herbal elixirs, Genepì and the famous grappa liquor (branda in dialect).
Hors d'oeuvres
Whether warm or cold, they often are real and proper entrees with meat, salami, stuffed vegetables, vegetable-filled omelettes, vegetable and meat salads. A typical dish is insalata di carne cruda all'albese, a Piedmontese beef filet sliced thin and served with an oil and lemon dressing.
First dishes
A brief mention of first dishes: Agnolotti. This typical dish is
purportedly named after a Monferrato cook called Angelotu (or little Angel).
Little be little, his dish, Piat d'Angelot, became agnolot. Home-made agnolotti
consist of a filling of beef, pork, ham, eggs, breadstick crumbs completed
with other ingredients and a sprinkling of grated nutmeg. They can be served
garnished with sliced truffle or butter and sage, minced meat and tomato
sauce, or meat sauce and plenty of grated Parmesan cheese. Other typical
entrees are egg Tagliatelle or tagliolini (tajarin) served with eggs
basted in butter and truffles and risotto rice dishes served in various
ways, potato gnocchi alla bava, lasagne all'albese.
Minestroni vegetable soups with pasta and beans, rice soups with milk and
dry chestnuts, rice and beans with the addition of a small salami which
led to the creation of panissa at Vercelli and Novara and the tofeja
of the Canavese area.
A dish that stands out all by itself is bagna caôda. Its base is
garlic, oil, anchovies and various other ingredients. It is to be tasted
with a convivial rite around small earthenware pots kindled by individual
fires for the bagna caôda (hot gravy or sauce) continues to keep up its
proper temperature and can be used to dip into it the various crude and
fresh vegetables the region has plenty of.
Second dishes
Brasato al Barolo (beef braised in Barolo wine) and bollito misto (mixed
boiled meats) owe their fame to the renowned beef of Piedmont and are served
with various sauces and condiments. Finanziera is a mixed dish consisting
of various meat varieties, pore mushrooms and green peas cooked in Barbaresco
wine laced with cinnamon (the name is purported to be due to the preference
this dish enjoyed with Turin's stock exchange operators and financiers).
The main ingredients of Fritto misto alla Piemontese are small veal escalopes,
lamb chops, liver, batsoà (from the French Bas de soie - pig's trotters
already boiled in water and vinegar) brain, chicken, sausages, fruit and
sweets. The only missing ingredient is fish. Uova alla Bela Rosin are hard-boiled
eggs cut in half and dressed with mayonnaise. Fricandò is a beef meat, sausage
and chicken base dish.
Other specialities from Turin and Piedmont are: Peperoni farciti à la Piemontaise
(peppers stuffed with boiled rice); snails with sausage, snails cooked in
tomato sauce; stuffed veal with Barolo wine; polenta conssa (corn
mash) with fontina cheese and truffles; polenta carbonada with fontina cheese
and meat sauce. Then trout from its many breeding waters and torrents, wonderfully
cooked with butter and oil, pollo alla cacciatora, fried frogs and frogs
à la Vercellaise. Stuffed artichokes à la Turinaise, with veal and chicken
meat, truffles and boiled ham.
Steak à la grissonopoli or à la Turinaise, cooked with grissini Rubatà breadsticks
crumbled but ungrated to keep the typical tasty and crisp effect of the
breadstick .... and Piedmontese pizza garnished with little cubes
of red and yellow peppers.
White truffles
The white truffle or trifola (tuber magnatum Pico) is the taste of
Piedmontese gastronomy par excellence and deserves being dealt with all
by itself. This valuable tuber (particularly the variety from the Alba and
Asti areas) was defined a poetic mystery of the gastronomic world. Its greatest
virtue lies in its penetrating, subtle and acute fragrance; it is even said
to have aphrodisiac powers.
In Piedmont, white truffles enhance and ennoble many typical dishes. They
are consumed crude, cut into very thin slices on a host of different specialities:
on risotto, fondue, agnolotti, and tagliolini, on venison, on salad (one
of King Umberto I's favourite dishes) and with bagna caôda.
Salami
The most classical Piedmontese salami is I salam 'dla Duja, a seasoned sausage stored in an earthenware or glass container, the salame d'oca novarese (a sausage of pork bacon) and the spalot, a pig shoulder sausage from Biella.
Cheeses
Our Piedmont has a great tradition in cheese production, a direct consequence of the region's excellent dairy farms. Worthy of mention are Gorgonzola, Robiola of Roccaverano and Murazzano or Toma delle Langhe, Castelmagno, Raschera, Bëttelmatt or Grasso d'Alpe, without overlooking the less noble but pleasant tasting cheeses such as the tomini, paglierine and seirass (skim milk cheese) produced all over our region.
Fruit and sweets
There are so many regional fruits and local sweet that imposing a choice would be vain...
Wines
It's well known that Piedmont is synonymous with wine. Piedmont is the only
Italian region that has long since activated a complex network for the knowledge
and qualification of wines. There are as many as nine vintage wines stocks
(often located in old castles) and a great number of wine shops; two important
wine museums, the Martini & Rossi Museum at Pessione, Turin and the
Bersano Museum at Nizza Monferrato. Piedmont is the region of Italy's most
authoritative wines. Our region contains some 75,000 hectares of
vineyards producing 7,000,000 quintals of white and black grapes
with 44 D.O.C. (Controlled Origin Denomination) and D.O.C.G.
(Guaranteed Controlled Origin Denomination) wines as well as countless V.Q.P.R.D.
wines (Quality Wines Produced in Defined Regions) and geographical denomination
table wines. D.O.C.G. wines are monitored by ad hoc tasting commissions
that issue specific State guarantee stamps which producers attach to each
bottle.
From the Langhe and the Monferrato firstly but also from the Canavese and the
Biella area, the hills of Ovada and Acqui, Chieri and Tortona, Mondovì and some
pre-Alpine valleys, these are the names of the region's D.O.C. and D.O.C.G. wines:
Barolo (D.O.C.G.). Barbaresco (D.O.C.G.), Barbera d'Alba, Barbera d'Asti, Barbera
del Monferrato, Barbera delle colline Tortonesi, Boca, Brachetto d'Acqui, Bramaterra,
Caluso Passito del Canavese, Carema, (white) Cortese di Gavi, Cortese dei Colli
Tortonesi, Cortese del Monferrato, Dolcetto d'Alba, Dolcetto di Asti, Dolcetto
delle Langhe Monregalesi, Dolcetto di Diano d'Alba, Dolcetto di Dogliani, Dolcetto
di Ovada, (white) Erbaluce di Caluso, Fara, Freisa di Chieri, Freisa di Asti,
Gaviano, Gattinara, Ghemme, Grignolino d'Asti, Grignolino del Monferrato, Lessona,
Malvasia di Castelnuovo Don Bosco, Malvasia di Casorzo d'Asti, (natural white)
Moscato d'Asti, Moscato d'Alba, Asti Spumante, Nebiolo d'Alba, Roero, (white)
Roero Arneis, Rubino di Cantavenna, Ruchè di Castagnole Monferrato, Sizzano and
Loazzolo.
A brief note on the most famous wines:
Internationally renowned Barolo, a D.O.C.G. wine, the King of Wines and the Wine of Kings, is produced in eleven municipalities of the area of Barolo in Cuneo province. By law, it must be aged 3 years, two of which in oak casks, and minimum alcohol content is 13 °
Barbaresco D.O.C.G. is produced in four municipalities of the area of
Alba, Barbaresco, Neive and Treiso. By law, it must be aged 3 years, two
of which in oak casks, and minimum alcohol content is 12.5 °. The best period
for tasting these wines is between their fifth and ten year of ageing. They
are ideal for red meats, venison in particular.
Barbera in its normal (11.5 ° alcohol), superior (12.5 ° alcohol)
and sweet bubbly varieties is Piedmont's most popular wine. The name seems
to come from the word berbexina (as documented in 13th Century papers) later
corrupted into barberisina and ultimately Barbera.
Grignolino, another known Piedmontese wine, appears to owe its name
to the word grignola, a Monferrato dialect word for grape-stone, this variety
is particularly rich in.
Cortese, a dry white wine produced in Alessandria and Asti provinces, has
a dry and cool taste; its some 11 ° alcohol content makes it an excellent wines
for fish dishes.
Sparkling wines
Many different dry (brut) and sweet sparkling wines are produced in Piedmont with the following processing systems:
- Classical Champenois Method. The is the oldest method which consists in very slow fermentation in the bottle and two to three years of ageing in the presence of yeasts (the classical methods for Bruts)
- Charmat method. The difference is that sparkling is obtained in large autoclaves instead inside a bottle. The Charmat method is considered the most suitable for producing Asti Spumante D.O.C.
Asti, the most typical of sweet sparkling wines is considered the Italian toast
king. It is produced with white amber coloured grapes, unlike Champagne
which come from black grapes. The story of this white wine, later made sparkling,
dates back to the 16th Century; four centuries of sparkling processing,
130 years since the first time by Carlo Gancia at Canelli, over fifty years
since the establishment of the protection consortium and at last the deserved
D.O.C. award. The Canelli hills, in Asti province, are still the
heart of the Asti muscat grape production area.
Asti Spumante's secret lies in keeping the grape's original aroma intact
and fragrant in a balance of intensity, where the sensation of sweet is
attenuated with the proper freshness, both conditioned by low alcohol content
and enhanced by the production of foam which animates and livens the wine.
Over half of Italy's total production of sparkling wine comes from Piedmont
and 80% is exported world-wide. Piedmont has Italy's largest wine industries,
which include names such as Martini & Rossi, Cinzano, Gancia, Barbero,
Riccadonna, Bosca and a host of others
Liqueurs and digestivi
Turin's Vermouth is known the world over (the oldest being Carpano). It
consists essentially of white wine (originally for the hills around Turin)
flavoured with extracts and infusions of many aromatic herbs (about 30 different
ones), spices, roots (artemisia, yarrow, Alpine gentian, cinnamon, calissaja
cinchona, rhubarb and others)
Barolo chinato is obtained with the main addition of calissaja cinchona
roots; various local bitter liqueurs and many grappa liquors come from many different
grape varieties, the queen being Barolo.
... and if you feel pangs of hunger between meals ...
So far we have dealt with lunches and dinners but if you feel like something to keep you going in mid morning or afternoon you'll find what you need at Turin. Just enter one of the various cafés of the town's historical centre and order a bicerin (a little glass as gourmet Cavour used to call it). It's a drink that intelligently merges expresso coffee with hot chocolate, a drop of milk, a shade of whipped cream and cocoa to top it off, served with biscuits or similar titbits.