The pleasures of eating in old Milan were illustrated
by Giuseppe Arcimboldo, a painter who used foods to create
human likenesses. In Italy's rice capital the saffron-tinted
risotto alla milanese is served with ossobuco (braised
veal shank). Rice (or rîs) is cooked in many ways:
with erborinn (parsley), spárgitt (asparagus),
rape (turnips), rane (frogs) and coràda (calf's
lung). The city's soups include robust minestrone and
busecca (based on tripe). Noted meat dishes are costoletta
alla milanese (breaded veal cutlet), casoeûla (pork
stew), fritto misto (of veal brains, liver, lungs and
sweetbreads) and mondeghili (meat croquettes). Milan
is known for fine-grained pork salame, that was traditionally
made in the city, as well as in the nearby Brianza hills,
where it rates a DOP. Panettone, a fluffy fruit cake,
is a national Christmas institution.
To the south lies Pavia and the rice paddies near where
the intricate risotto alla certosina was created at a
Carthusian monastery. Pavia is known for zuppa alla pavese,
risòtt rustì (rice with pork and beans),
dishes with frogs, crayfish and snails, and the original
colomba pasquale, the Easter cake in the form of a dove.
Fine salume is made in the hills of Oltrepò Pavese,
notably the Salame di Varzi, which rates a DOP. The town
of Mortara is noted for goose salame and fegato grasso
(foie gras).
Cremona, on the Po, is renowned for mostarda (mustard-flavored
candied fruits) served with platters of bollito misto.
Although the city may have been the birthplace of ravioli,
its most noted pasta today is marubini, disks filled
with meat and cheese and eaten in broth. A local treat
is torrone, nougat based on almonds.
Como's Alpine lake supplies prized persico (perch), tiny
fish called alborelle, which are fried and eaten whole,
and agoni, dried and preserved with bay leaf as missultitt,
eaten like sardines. Other delicacies are fitascetta
(pastry with red onions), polenta vûncia (with
garlic, butter and Grana Padano) and miascia (bread pudding
with apples, pears, raisins and rosemary).
The Valtellina, near the Alpine border of Switzerland,
is the home of bresaola (air dried beef) and violino
(smoked goat prosciutto). Buckwheat (grano saraceno)
is used for a cheese and grappa fritter called sciatt,
noodles called pizzoccheri, for polenta in fiur (cooked
with milk) and polenta taragna (with butter and the rare
scimudin cheese). The valley's legendary cheese is the
rustic Bitto DOP, though Valtellina Casera is also protected.
The provinces of Bergamo and Brescia share a ravioli-like
pasta called casônsei and polenta e osei, with
little birds cooked crisp enough to eat bones and all.
That dish used to be so popular that it inspired a cake
of the name with birds sculpted in almond paste. In the
Taleggio valley near Bergamo the finest cheese of the
name is ripened in caves. Formai de Mut dell'Alta Val
Brembana comes from the Alpine valley north of Bergamo.
Brescia's menus offer riso alla pitocca (rice boiled
with chicken) and pike, tench and eel from the lakes
of Garda and Iseo. Bagoss is an artisanal grana cheese
from the village of Bagolino.
Mantua (Mantova) in the eastern flatlands is noted for
pasta called agnolini, cooked with a rich beef-pork filling
and tortelli envelopes with squash. Vialone Nano rice
is grown locally for risotto alla pilota (with sausages).
Polenta is topped with ground salt pork as gras pistà.
Mantua's many desserts include crescent pastries called
offelle and cakes called bussolano (with potatoes and
lemon) and the crumbly torta sbrisulona. Pears from Mantova
are protected by an IGP. Part of the Parmigiano Reggiano
DOP zone is in the province of Mantova.
Although the region produces little olive oil, two types
rate DOP: Laghi Lombardi and Garda, from the shores of
the lake. Two wines have been distinguished as DOCG:
Franciacorta, a sparkling wine made by the classical
method of fermentation in bottle, and Valtellina Superiore,
a red from Nebbiolo. Notable among Lombardy's 13 DOCs
are those of Oltrepò Pavese, which takes in a
range of reds, whites and sparkling wines, and Lugana,
a fruity white from vineyards to the south of Lake Garda.
Lombardy located in northern Italy bordering on Switzerland.
First inhabited by a Gallic people, it became the center
of the kingdom of the Lombards in the sixth century A.D.
and part of Charlemagne's empire in 774. The Lombard
League of cities defeated Emperor Frederick I in 1176.
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