Biella

salam 'd l'ula

Salamis - The most widespread are salam 'd l'ula, i.e. preserved in fat, which are prepared using pork, salt, pepper and, sometimes, red wine: equally characteristic are salam 'd vaca beef, salam d'asu donkey, and those made from goat's meat. More localized examples include salam 'd patata which includes boiled potatoes and little blood and paletta di Coggiola, a shoulder of ham flavoured with salt and pepper, that is then packed into bladder skins and left to dry in the air. Cheeses and salamis can be found in specialist shops, and during weekly markets and village fairs.

Torcetti

Sweets - Torcetti sugar-coated biscuits made of a crispy and buttery pastry, paste 'd melia made of cornflour and turcetùn large torcetti made using a less rich pastry are still produced according to traditional recipes by some confectioners particularly in Andorno, Pollone and Biella. The confectioners of Biella and Cossato make canestrelli fragrant wafers made of chocolate and hazelnuts. At Crevacuore, it is possible to find home-made canestrej, which are chocolate wafers cooked between the plates of a red-hot grill and prepared according to a recipe that dates back to the XVII century.

Honey and fruits mustards - The large variety of blossoms in the area make it possible to choose from among a wide range of honeys, the most common of which are acacia, chestnut, linden, rhododendron, dandelion and mountain flower. In the Biellese, as well as being used as a sweetener, honey is traditionally served with polenta. During the course of village markets and festivals, it is still possible to find apple and grape mustards, which are prepared by slowly boiling the fruit sometimes for more than 12 hours in order to create a thick, dark syrup to accompany boiled meats, fresh cheese, polenta and paletta.

Primi piatti - Together with dairy products, the real protagonists of this originally genuinely rustic cuisine are its soups, broths and polenta, a type of corn-meal mush. One of the traditional dishes of the Oropa valley but whose fame haas now spread beyond the borders of Biellese is "pulenta cunscia", a soft and creamy corn mush cooked for a long time in a special copper pot called "paiolo", in which a large quantity of local cheese is melted and mixed with tasty dairy butter; and the same condiments are used to flavour "ris an cagnùn", a dish of boiled rice mixed with toma and lightly fried butter. Both of these simple and ancient preparations bring together the resources of the Alps and the plain. Rice is also a fundamental ingredient of "mactabe", a thick soup that made up the evening meal for many generations of the people in the Biellese, "ris e riundele" rice and malva, and "minestra marià" rice with beets or wild spinach, to name just some of the primi piatti which, depending on the season and the valley, contribute towards the gastronomic repertoire of the province. The bread-based soups also have a wide variety of flavours, and include the excellent "supa mitunà" which, in the spring, is enriched with the unpredictable - sometimes sweet, sometimes bitterish, sometimes very marked - taste of wild herbs and, in the winter, is completely transformed by the use of leeks and savoy cabbage.

Secondi Piatti - Meat, which was once only rarely and triumphantly presented stuffed hen, rabbit in "scivé" and stuffed "sacoccia" were reserved for special occasions now enters as a timid ingredient, together with eggs, vegetables and garden herbs, in roulades of "capunet" - wrapped in beet or cabbage leaves - squash flowers and onions. There are many different types of salami one of the most common being "salam 'd l'ula": i.e. preserved in fat, which are also used in the preparation of such traditional dishes as "frità rugnusa" a type of salami omelette or "verzata" a rich soup of savoy cabbage and salami that is almost a meal in itself. The trout of the mountain streams and the whitefish of the Lake Viverone are justly renowned for their delicacy.

Specialties - Although every village has its own particular sweet, one that is typical of the Biellese as a whole is "l'arsumà", a soft mousse of egg and sugar diluted with milk or wine, which should be eaten with torcetti and biscuits fresh from the oven, or with the thin cornflour wafers called "miasce". The mineral waters of the Biellese are famous for their exceptional lightness the water Lauretana, low in mineral content, today is the heir of an ancient hydrotherapeutic tradition, but there is also no lack of wine, including some well-known D.O.C.; Biella is also the home of Menabrea, one of the best lagers in the world. Finally, particular mention should be made of Ratafià di Andorno, a drink made of wild cherries steeped in alcohol according to a 500-year-old recipe.