CUISINE
Lombard cuisine is rich and varied, characterized by the use of rice, corn (polenta), butter and dairy products, with Alpine and Po Valley influences.
Vista Ostuni
Among the iconic dishes stand out the Milanese risotto, the cutlet, the ossobuco, the cassöeula, the pizzoccheri of Valtellina, and famous desserts such as panettone, reflecting a strong peasant and city tradition. You cannot have been to the Lombard capital without having eaten the famous Milanese risotto, unique with its yellow color due to saffron. Tradition wants it accompanied by ossobuco.
Milanese cutlets on the bone and cooked in butter, the cutlet can also be found ready and steaming in some historic butcher shops. Come in and ask, it will be worth it. Those who love meat cannot help but taste the mondeghili, tasty meatballs made with beef, and the cassoula, made with pork and vegetables. The gorgonzola PDO, blue and creamy raw cheese that can be sweet or spicy. Grana Padanois hard, aged, and protected by a PDO mark. Bitto is a sweet alpine cheese left to mature for at least 70 days; try it with pizzoccheri. Finally, the quartirolo lombardo DOP is a typical soft table cheese.
Breakfast at Musa Hotel
MIlanese cutlet Photo: Vaselineeeeeeee, CC BY-SA 4.0
Pizzoccheri della Valtellina Photo: Aplasia, CC BY-SA 4.0
Gorgonzola cheese Photo: Towfiqu Barbhuiya
Pumpkin Risotto Photo: Luca Nebuloni from Milan, Italy, CC BY 2.0
Panettone Photo: Vicky Ng
Among the most popular cured meats is the bresaola della Valtellina, with very little fat and suitable for diets. It is made with cured beef.
The Mantuan pumpkin, one of the most popular pumpkin varieties forits particular sweetness, should also be tasted at least once. Pumpkin Tortelli are a delicacy, and you can also learn how to make them by participating in one of the many cooking classes organized in Mantua and its surroundings.
Lombardy is the region that produces the largest number of PDO cheeses in Italy, 12 in all, for which as many food and wine itineraries have sprung up that invite you to discover them. From Bitto to Casera in Valtellina, Silter in Val Camonica, formaggella with goat's milk in the Luinese area, and then Quartirolo Lombardo, Taleggio, Grana Padano, Gorgonzola, Salva Cremasco, Strachitunt, you are really spoiled for choice. Also worth tasting is the spicy Bagòss di Bagolino, with its delicate notes of saffron.
The Upper Mantua area is the undisputed homeland of fine black ink, scorzone, smooth black, and marzuolo. We are talking about his majesty, the truffle, even larger than an apple, with a unique and unmistakable scent. This sensational fruit of the earth is accompanied by the one that grows along the right bank of the Po, in the Truffle Valley, whose sandy and alluvial soils and temperate and rainy climate are the ideal habitat for numerous varieties, from the "trifulin" to the Tuber Magnatum Pico, the most valuable of all.