Food of North Italy. Luigi Veronelli

      Part One: Food in North Italy

      Not only is the northwest Italy's fashion capital, it also boasts the nations finest wines, truffles, mushrooms, and game

      T sauce and pizza will hardly recognize northwestern Italy as being Italian at all. This area—comprising the regions of Piedmont, Lombardy, and Valle d'Aosta—nestles in the Alps bordering Switzerland and France, and its cuisine might be confused with that of its rumblings. In fact, the North is somewhat aloof from the rest of Italy and every few years there are rumblings about it seceding from the poorer south though no one takes this seriously.

      North Italy will also surprise the traveler who thinks of Italians as laid-back and relaxed, who imagines them taxing long afternoon naps after leisurely lunches. Piedmont is the home of several enormous corporations—including Fiat, Italy's largest car manufacturer, responsible for 37 percent of the country's gross national product—and offers a luxurious sophistication perhaps more often associated with France than with Italy. Turin, in particular, and Piedmont are generally known for lush, gilded cafes, artistic pastries and chocolates, and truffles—one of the world's most expensive foods. Nevertheless, the region is still surprisingly agricultural, and also produces Italy's finest wines, as well as several kinds of nuts and the usual rich Italian array of produce.

      Lombardy, with its capital, Milan, is Italy's fashion, business, and banking center. Although the countryside of Lombardy is still heavily agricultural, the region boasts a cuisine that can hardly be considered rustic, even in the most rural areas, dependent as it is on butter, cream, rice, and cheese. Lombardy's is a culinary tradition rich not only in history, but also in calories. It is also a highly-varied tradition, with each town offering its own particular specialty.

      Valle d'Aosta is often overlooked in studies of Italy because of its minuscule size, but to do so is a mistake. Landlocked Valle d'Aosta is home to several famous peaks—Mont Blanc, Mount Rosa, the Matterhorn, and the Gran Paradiso (which at 13,324 feet is the centerpiece of Italy's largest national park)—but few people. With 115,000 inhabitants, it is the least populous of Italy's regions. Valle d'Aosta has no large cities; its capital, Aosta, has only about 37,000 inhabitants. The food is hearty and surprising. Ingredients like cabbage, cheese, and the local dark rye bread sustain the region's inhabitants over long Alpine winters. As in all of northwestern Italy, there is no sign of tomato sauce anywhere here—just inventive food made with high-quality ingredients. Ultimately, that is what makes food Italian.

      Together, Piedmont and Lombardy produce the most amount of wine in Italy.

      A Land of Riches

      The wide selection of fine produce found in northwestern Italy translates into some of the tastiest dishes in Italian cuisine

      From remote mountain villages and sprawling vineyards to some of the world's most sophisticated cities, the northwest of Italy—Piedmont (Piemonte), Lombardy (Lombardia), and Valle d'Aosta—offers a great study in contrasts. And it is not only the landscapes that are varied, but this area also boasts both sophisticated city-styled culinary traditions and rustic farmhouse cooking. As in all of Italy, climate and agriculture create each region's culinary destiny here; the inhabitants of these three provinces and their subdivisions eat fine, locally grown produce.

      Thanks to the Po River—Italy's largest—there is no problem growing produce in abundance in the northwest. The Po River originates in northwest Italy, at Mount Monviso in the Cottian Alps, and runs through Turin and then eastward along the southern border of Lombardy until it empties into the Adriatic. Not only does the Po effectively cut off this region from the rest of the country; it also creates some of the most fertile farmland in Italy. The river's valley is an ideal growing environment, and the river itself and its tributaries supply abundant water.

      This part of the country is dairy territory. In the countryside, cows and goats provide milk, much of which is used to produce the outstanding cheeses for which northwestern Italy is famous. Milk appears as an ingredient in soups and rice dishes in all three of these regions, and anyone convinced that the "Mediterranean diet" relies only on olive oil will be shocked to see the copious amounts of butter used in most dishes here.

      Rice has been grown in the Po Valley since the 15th century.

      Likewise, anyone convinced that Italians eat pasta every day will be surprised to see the range of inventive primi, or first courses, served in this northwest corner of the country. Fresh egg pasta is common, but more often northwestern Italians begin a meal with a soup, rice-based dish, or polenta.

      The Piedmont diet in particular relies heavily on rice. Rice has grown in the flood plain of the Po Valley since 1475. Most likely it was imported from Spain, where it had been introduced by the Arabs. Today the Piedmont town of Vercelli is the location of the national rice market. The rice grown in this area is medium-to short-grain rice, such as arborio, vialone nano, and carnaroli, and all three of these have a special starchy coating. This coating is released during the cooking of risotto to provide the dish's most marked characteristic—its creamy and soupy consistency.

      Piedmont is a large producer of cheese, the most famous types being bra, tome, tomini, castelmagno, acceglio, and bross.

      The people of Piedmont and Lombardy have a reputation in Italy for working hard and for living lavishly. Lombardy is home to Italy's famous fashion houses, while Piedmont is historically linked with a house of a different type: the House of Savoy, Italy's former royal family, which after 1861 ruled almost all of what is today modern Italy.

      Both Lombardy and

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