pork sausage is excellent both on its own and in risotto. Mortara is the place to go for goose salami, Mantua and Cremona for cooked pork salami. And finally, Valchiavenna and Com-podolcino prepare violino, a goat—or occasionally sheep—thigh brined with herbs and spices and then dried and smoked.
No midday Italian meal is complete without a primo, or first course, but while in the rest of Italy that usually indicates a pasta dish, Lombardy has stretched the definition of primi to include polenta (which may also serve as a side dish) and all types of risotto. Pasta appears here, too, of course, mostly in the form of casonsei and tortelli. These are both stuffed pastas, the first filled with various types of meat, and the second available in numerous versions, including those with meat, cheese, or vegetables.
Food is tied to age-old traditions throughout Italy, but in Lombardy some of the most ancient cooking methods are still in use. The Lombards—the Germanic people who ruled Lombardy from 568 to 774, and lent their name to the region-introduced clay cooking there in the 6th century. This method is still used in Valcuvia, most commonly with pheasant. The bird is seasoned, wrapped in clay, then placed in an oven. When the clay shell cracks all the way around, the dish is cooked. The clay is then shattered, and the meat eaten at its fragrant best.
However, the Lombardy oven is more commonly used for making the region's famed cakes and other sweets than it is for clay cooking. The best known Lombardy cake is panettone (see right). This sweet yeast bread with citron, candied orange peel, and sultanas is traditionally prepared at Christmas time and is now eaten throughout Italy. There are various myths surrounding the origins of its name: one claims that it derives from pan de Toni, or "Toni's bread," supporting the theory that a baker named Toni was the first to make it. It may also come from pan de ton, or "fancy bread." Colomba pasquale is another seasonal treat—this one associated with Easter—that originated in Lombardy but is now enjoyed throughout Italy. Colomba pasquale means "Easter dove," and this cake is baked in a special bird-shaped pan.
Along with the Duomo and Teatro alla Scala, Cova's panettone—the finest example of this typical Lombardy Christmas cake-is a symbol of Milan.
Lombardy has much more to satisfy a sweet tooth. Bussolano is a typical Mantua doughnut; cannoli and tortina come from Lodi; Carnevale offers chiacchiere. There are fave dei morti, offelle from Parana, and oss de mord (literally, "bones of the dead"). Pan de mein is eaten with cream on Saint George's day. Bergamo has sweet polenta, while both Mantua and Cremona lay claim to sbrisolona (the Mantua version contains almonds, while the Cremona version is rich with walnuts). Finally there are also the almond cakes of Pavia, Cremona's torrone, and torta di latte. In short, Lombardy's sweets are as varied and tempting as all its foods, and provide a most luxurious ending to any fabulous meal in the region.
The most well-known restaurant in Milan—the Savini restaurant.
Sophisticated Milan
The capital city of Lombardy offers high-brow dining in exquisite surroundings
The capital city of Lombardy, the financial capital of Italy and the fashion capital of the world, Milan cannot help but impress. It is home to Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper" and home base for fashion houses like Armani and Versace, as well as furniture designers like Ettore Sottsass, and its architecture ranges from the neoclassical La Scala opera house to the Baroque Palazzo di Brera dating back to 1651.
The city's culinary landmarks are just as fascinating. People from all over the world come to Milan, and it is one of the few places in Italy where you will find exotic foreign restaurants offering the foods of countries in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Because natives of other regions have also migrated to Milan, you will find restaurants representing those cuisines as well. Milanese cooking is interesting in its own right, however—it is as sophisticated and creative as its birthplace.
Milan boasts two dishes that bear its name and that are very closely associated with the city. First, there is risotto alla milanese, a beautiful saffron-tinged rice dish. The (possibly apocryphal) story of its origins involves another of Milan's symbols: the city's Duomo, an imposing Gothic structure that seems to cast its shadow over the entire metropolis. From 1572 until 1576 the Flemish painter Valerio da Perfundavalle worked on the stained-glass windows of the Milan Duomo, and he used a pinch of saffron, diluted in water, to enrich the yellows in his palette. The apprentice assigned to handle saffron duties came to be nicknamed Zafferano, or Saffron. In 1574, Zafferano married the boss's daughter, and they held their wedding banquet in the cloister behind the Duomo's apse. As a practical joke, the groom's friends added saffron to the rice. Wedding guests relished the dish, and it quickly grew popular throughout Milan. Today it is accompanied by ossobuco, a slow-cooked veal shank served with a long-handled spoon so that the diner may scoop out the bone marrow as a final treat.
After centuries of refinement, the classic version of risotto alla milanese calls for rice to be toasted lightly in sautéed butter, onion, and bone marrow, then brought to a boil with saffron-flavored beef broth. The risotto is then removed from the heat and butter and Grana cheese are stirred in. Carlo Emilio Gadda (1893-1973), the Milanese author who wrote, among other books, That Awful Mess on Via Merulana and Acquainted With Grief, had this to say about his native city's most famous dish: "Risotto alia Milanese should never be overcooked, please, no! It should be slightly more than al dente on the plate. The grains should be soaked and swollen in their juices, with each grain an individual, neither stuck to its companions, nor resting soggy in sludge, which would be unpleasant. Expert risotto-makers allow just a touch of grated Parmesan. This dish is worthy of the serious and elegant people of Milan."
Milan's other culinary star is costoletta alla Milanese, or breaded veal cutlet. When properly cooked, it is crisp on the outside, but juicy on the inside. While this may seem like an exceedingly simple dish for such a complex city, but it represents an interesting aspect of Milan: the foreign rule in its past.
Over the past two millennia or so, Lombardy has been under the thumb of a variety of groups—everyone from the Franks to the French have conquered this valuable territory, and since Milan has existed as an important city since Roman times, it usually served as headquarters for these invaders. Lombardy, and as a result, Milan, was under Austrian rule from 1814 until 1859, and Milanese cuisine still bears the stamp of Austrian influence, not least of all in costoletta alla milanese, which is basically Vienna's beloved wiener schnitzel.
Actually, the Milanese believe that it was not their city that adopted the veal cutlet from Vienna, but the other way around. In fact, Austrian commander Joseph Radetzky—governor of the Austrian kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia from 1850 to 1857—sent a missive to the Court of the Hapsburgs that supports this claim. In it, he described Milanese cuisine and mentioned one particularly delicious item: a veal cutlet dipped in egg, then in breadcrumbs, and cooked in butter. While this was a side note to Radetzky's report, it reportedly struck a chord with the emperor, and upon his return to Vienna, Radetzky was summoned to the court to instruct the head cook there in exactly how to recreate this delicacy.
Another Milanese dish, cassoeula (a name that derives from the Castilian cazuela) is instead a legacy of Spanish rule. In 1540, Hapsburg Emperor Charles V invested his son, soon to become Philip II of Spain, with the local duchy. Spanish rule stayed in place until 1706. This dish has countless variations, but the most common adds sausage, pancetta, and goose gizzard to a base of cabbage, pork rind, pig's feet, and other pork products. Cassoeula is served with bread or polenta.
A Milanese dish that has spread throughout the world is minestrone, which literally means "big soup." This is a soup of beans, vegetables, and pasta or rice. Ingredients will vary depending on the season and a particular cook's recipe, but minestrone is always
