Piemonte, the land at the foot of the mountains looks like the mythical Camelot especially in autumn, when the mist floats down from the mountain and the forests are home to truffle hunters, mushroom pickers, nut gatherers and the inevitable game hunters.  A region of wine drinkers, these Italians have managed to turn the food of the region into an extraordinarily refined cuisine to accompany their world famous wines like the Barbarola and the Barbaresco. It’s a landlocked area and borders on Switzerland and France and is not only Italy’s richest region but probably it’s most extravagant when it comes to food.

The region was once inhabited by the Celts but in 220 BC the Taurini and Salassi were all but massacred by the mighty Romans who divided the region into Taurinorum and Eporedia and when the Romans fell, the region was repeatedly raped by the Burgundians, the Goths, the Franks and then later the Magyars and the Saracens. When Piedmont was part of the Kingdom of Italy*, she was subdivided into several counties but became part of Savoy in 1046 and then followed a complex history which, at one time, even saw a marriage between Savoy and Sardinia – and each time flux and fusion imported new ideas, new chefs and new methodologies and food simply continued improving and today the Piedmontese are surely as close to perfection as one gets. The influence of Savoy is still evident in the dialect and the French technical terms still found in local cookbooks – like civet that refers to stock and a cocotte which is a cast iron casserole. Almost all tastes must surely be catered for in Piedmont with a

plethora of hors d’oeuvres, 1^st and 2^nd courses, side dishes, the legendary grissini (les petites batons de Turin was one of Napoleon’s particular favourites) and, most importantly, the cheese – the incredible cheese of which no less than 8 are D.O.C.  The sweet-toothed can choose between bone’t made with chocolate custard and amaretti, little bignole (pastries), hazelnut torrone (hard nougat sweets) and internationally acclaimed chocolates like gianduja (hazelnut chocolate paste) and oh-so-many others. Butter and lard are typically used as are raw vegetables, sanato (milk fed calves that are used mainly in Piedmont and Valle d’Aosta), a large variety of cheese, truffles and garlic. If you pay a visit to Piedmont there are a few must tastes and bagna caoda (raw vegetables with an anchovy sauce), risotto alla piemontese (recipe below) and paniscia di Novara (a dish based on rice and borlotti beans) are the type of dish to order and then, of course, nobody can possibly leave without having tried gorgonzola and castelmagno - simply ‘cheeses to die for’ especially with a glass of the world famous local red wine.

CASTELMAGNO

This cheese is exclusively produced in Castelmagno, Pradleves and Monterosso Grana in the province of Cuneo. It’s easy to recognize the real thing because it has a little mark, a little triangle in a letter ‘c‘ on the top and it has been made here since 1277. The cheese is specifically documented in a legal arbitration settlement that confirms that an annual charge had been made for the use of a pasture about which the communities of Castelmagno and Celle di Marcra had been arguing at the time. It  was payable to the margrave of Saluzzo in the form of Castelmagno cheese. Because of the Italian sense of tradition, the cheese is made today in almost exactly the same way as it was in those days. It contains only 35 % fat, is made only from cows milk but may also contain a little sheep’s or goat’s milk. A young Castelmagno has a reddish rind and is ivory coloured with a slightly salty and nutty taste, whilst the mature cheese has a dark red to grey rind and one can see blue-greenish veins running through the ochre curd.

GORGONZOLA

Everyone knows this cheese and everyone has seen the little wedges wrapped in silver paper in their local deli or even at the grocer. The cheese may only be made in Bergamo Brescia, Como, Cremona, Cuneo,  Milano, Novara, Pavia and Vercelli. Most of the Gorgonzola producers can be found in Piedmontese Novara. It has a 48% fat content and is made from full cream cow’s milk – today only pasteurized milk unlike in days gone by. What the heck, if you got sick, you got sick and with the Penicillum Glaucum mould that was added to  help with the fermentation and create those little blue veins,  I bet a few of us thought we were just about covered. The cheese is matured for 2 – 3 months in temperature controlled conditions like in the natural caves or cool rooms with similar temperatures.

TRUFFLES

The truffle, for which the region is famous, is the Tuber magnatum which is a white truffle also known as the Alba truffle and was particularly loved by Apicius, the Roman chef who committed suicide when he didn’t have any money left to cook in the style to which he had accustomed himself and who used truffles in almost all his recipes. Rice is cultivated in the area of Piedmont where plains, stretching out in a half moon shape from Cuneo to Ticino and opening past the Dora Baltea, widen into the flat green Vercellese, a land rich in agricultural resources that found it’s agrarian unity in the cultivation of rice.

RISOTTO ALLA PIEDMONTESE

Ingredients

• 350 g Arborio rice
• 1 litre home made chicken stock
• 1 piece of Alba truffle – or a whole one if you can afford it and get hold of it
• 5 – 6 heaped tbsp butter
• 100 g parmesan
• Sea salt to taste
• Nutmeg to taste
• Soft sun-dried tomatoes in oil
• Pesto oil
• Balsamic reduction

Method

• Cook the rice as you would any normal risotto until it’s not quite al dente.
• Remove from the heat, add the butter, the cheese and check and season with salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste and then allow to rest for about a minute.
• Pour the rice into a pre-warmed serving dish and cover, as generously as possible, with fine slices of truffles.
• Some people in the area make a rich gravy that they also serve with the risotto but we feel it will kill the taste of the truffles and thus advise you to omit it here.
• Garnish with soft sun dried tomatoes and drizzle very lightly with pesto oil and a tiny amount of balsamic reduction.

BOLLITO MISTO

This dish requires special attention because it’s legend and because for the non Italian, rather perplexing – after all, who on earth eat boiled meat? Well, for starters, in the last century Crown Prince Vittorio Emanuele did, he loved it! He and his friends would sneak off to Moncalvo to eat this magical dish made from 7 kinds of meat, 7 vegetables and 7 condiments.  The 7 kinds of meat are important and not just a whim – Italians take their food very seriously and whims simply aren’t tolerated here. The meats usually are beef, veal, pork, chicken, tongue and zampone or cotechino (in Scotland a wee bit of haggis could replace the cotechino, for example) but feel free use whatever is available in your region and that you consider suitable. More mature cuts of meat are preferable because they are larger and far tastier. Today’s recipe includes only 6 types of meat –  remember that bollito is perfect for entertainment and there’s often more than enough for left-overs.

Ingredients

• 1,25 kg shoulder of beef (you could even use brisket if you like)
• 1,25 kg breast roast of veal (flank or brisket or even topside)
• 625 g pork fillets (traditionally a calf’s head was used and in Piedmont, it’s the only way to go)
• 625 veal tongue
• 1,25 g free range chicken A
• 375 g cotechino
• 2 large carrots
• 3 generous sticks of celery
• 2 large onions, stuck with 2 cloves each
• Salt to taste
• Peppercorns to taste

Method

• Fill a huge pot with enough water to cover the meat completely and salt the water, add the vegetables and put onto the stove to boil.
• As soon as it boils, add the beef and reduce the heat so that it simmers and allow to simmer for an hour at which point you add the veal, the chicken and the pork.
• As soon as you add the chicken and the veal to the beef, bring a second pot of lightly salted water to the boil and add the tongue, allowing it to simmer.
• Should you be using a fresh cotechino (or zampone) put it in a third pot of cold lightly salted water (after you have pricked it all over) and begin to simmer it around the same time as the veal and the tongue – remember to loosen the string of the zampone if you’re using that instead of the cotechino.
• As soon as the meat are fork tender, they are done – about an hour and a half but it could be more.
• Steam the vegetables quickly and serve everything on a very large platter with a ladle of the well strained broth and carved at the table.
• Make sure there’s plenty of good quality salt, Italian olive oil, one or two of the sauces and bread, even though that’s breaking tradition somewhat because the sauces below are traditionally served.

THE SAUCES

If you want to stick to tradition you’ll need to serve the following but any one or two will do:

• bagnèt ross (a tomato sauce or dip)
• bagnet vert (a delicious parsley, garlic and anchovy sauce or dip)
• salsa del pòvr’òm (a poor man’s sauce made from plenty of onions and red wine)
• saosa ‘d avije (a honey sauce)
• mustard
• horseradish,
• mostarda d’uva,
• A bowl of good quality coarse sea salt.

BAGNET ROSS

Ingredients

• 1, 25 ripe sweet tomatoes
• 400 g fresh onions
• 2 medium-sized carrots
• 1 large stick celery
• 3 cloves garlic
• 375 ml Italian extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tbsp red wine vinegar (please don’t use the cheap rubbish that burns your tongue to a frazzle)
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
• 1 tbsp sugar

Method

• Peel and chop the tomatoes, the onions, the celery and the garlic and put in a pot with the oil.
• Bring this to a boil, turn down the heat and add the sugar and the vinegar and simmer, uncovered,  for about 30 minutes.
• Put everything in a food processor and process until you reach a consistency that you like, add the rest of the oil and the crushed pepper and salt to taste.

BAGNET VERT

Ingredients

• 125 g parsley
• 1 clove garlic
• 2 salted anchovies
• 2-3 decent slices day-old bread, with crusts removed
• 3 small sweet and sour pickled cucumbers.
• 1 tsp capers, preserved in salt and rinsed
• 250 ml good red wine vinegar
• 150 ml Italian extra virgin olive oil

Method

• Soak the bread in the vinegar and process the parsley with the garlic, the anchovies and pickled cucumbers.
• Gently squeeze the bread to drain it and add this to the mixture – process for a few minutes and place in a bowl.
• Using a wooden spoon, slowly stir in the olive oil, working the mixture well in order to obtain a fairly fluid sauce.

SALSA DEL PÒVR’ÒM

Ingredients

• 250 ml dry red wine
• 1 large onion
• 2-3 shallots
• 2-3 spring onions
• 3 cloves  garlic
• 1 lemon, juice only
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.

Method

• Process the onions, the shallots, the spring onions and the garlic into a paste.
• Bring the wine to a boil and stir it into the paste, adding salt and pepper to taste – stir in the lemon juice.
• Process the sauce, check and correct the seasoning again and it’s ready.

*within the Holy Roman Empire,