THE HONEY
Honey is a natural food, rich in mineral salts and vitamins; it is
produced by bees, through the reprocessing of nectar gathered from the flowers
or the gummy substance (melata) found on many plants. The nectar is then
collected in the honeycombs of the beehives, where the elaboration process and
water evaporation continues. The honey produced is then extracted from the cells
on the upper frames, through disopercolating (by uncapping the wax “cork”) of
the small cells and cold centrifugation. It is then purified by filtering and
left to mellow in the maturation containers.
The “Consorzio Qualità Miele Varesino”, whose aim is to safeguard the
honey produced in the Varese province, at both the production stage as
well as at marketing time, protects three types of honey:
The strongly scented, floral
· Millefiori honey, whose pleasant flavour varies according to the area of production, is extracted from the pollen of different flowers and from the gummy substance (melata) found on many plants. Ideal for home baking and for breakfast; The slightly amber coloured
· acacia honey has a delicate aroma and a very sweet flavour. It is perfect with seasoned sheep cheeses and seasonal fresh fruit; The slightly bitter
· chestnut honey has a strong aroma with dark colouring, shading to black. It pairs perfectly with seasoned goat and mixed goat-cow cheeses.
In the kitchen, honey is an ingredient that dates further back than sugar and, to this day, is still used to prepare many traditional cakes and sweets, while the combining of honey with certain types of cheeses is becoming ever more appreciated.
THE FORMAGGELLA
The formaggella del
Luinese is a soft cheese produced by the exclusive use of raw, full-cream
goat milk; the seasoning stage takes place in controlled-humidity cells or
in naturally damp cellars, and lasts at least 20 days. The paste of the
formaggella del Luinese is white, creamy and compact, with a full,
concentrated fragrance that increases as the seasoning progresses; this is a
cheese that is appreciated for its sweet yet intense flavour, typical of
cheeses produced from goat milk.
For some time now, the formaggella has become the top product of the
luinesi Valleys
agricultural firms (the area of production encompasses about 70 municipalities)
and is ever more insistently making its way to the tables of appreciative fans.
The Luinese formaggella is about to receive the Protected Origin Denomination
D.O.P.), the prestigious European qualification certifying its origin and
purity.
The milk used in the production of the formaggella is obtained from two species
of goat: the “Camosciata delle Alpi” and the “Nera di Verzasca”,
the latter actually being the one chosen as the formaggella’s logo: in fact, the
label on the packaging of each cheese shows a goat’s head on a red background.
THE GOAT "VIOLIN"
To
this day, in the mountainous Val Veddasca area, the “violin” is
still produced. It is a special leg of ham using the thighs of goats or sheep
bred in semi-wild state. It owes its name to the shape it acquires and to
the way in which it is sliced: the leg is used as the handle while the muscular
mass represents the sound box, and it is cradled like a violin, with the knife
being held as if it were the violin’s bow.
This “violin” is still prepared nowadays as it was by the artisans of long
ago; the pieces are salted and flavoured with garlic, washed in red wine and
rubbed with juniper berries, being then left to season for a period that varies
from three to six months.
It is a ham that releases an intense and delicately spiced fragrance and
flavour, appreciated for its particular and incomparable taste as well as
its easy digestibility. Production of the “violin” is still linked to mainly
family run businesses, and this makes it into the sought after rarity
that brings many gourmets to the actual production areas; a product so rare and
appreciated that a supervisory body ( “Presidio”), has been provided by the
“Slow Food Movement” for its safeguarding and the development of its quality.
THE ASPARAGUS
Cantello,
a small village close to the Swiss border, owes its fame to the cultivation of a
very particular type of asparagus, quite different to that normally found in
commerce; it is a white asparagus, with a rosy tip, that retains its
consistency and flavour even after cooking. It is said that the Baj family
introduced the cultivation of this asparagus in Cantello, imposing it on the
share-croppers and land tenants to make up for the limited productive and market
conditions of the traditional agricultural cultivation of that period.
The fame of the Cantello asparagus literally exploded during the Thirties until
the mid Sixties. In those years, with the advent of mechanisation, many
producers abandoned the asparagus cultivation; however nowadays, after periods
of scant production in the Seventies and Eighties, cultivation has picked up
again, and from a yearly harvest of 20 quintals at the end of the Nineties, we
have progressed to more than 150 quintals in 2004.
The asparagus that we eat as a vegetable, is actually the turion, the young
shoot that sprouts from the underground rhizome. Picking starts at the end of
March and continues through to May-June. The young sprouts withstand
temperatures of even -15°, which makes cultivation possible on the hills and in
the valleys of the Po Plains. Cantello, together with Mezzago (Mi) and Cilavegna
(Pv), are the last areas in which asparagus cultivation is found in Lombardy;
every second Sunday of May a village feast is organised during which this
delicious vegetable can be tasted as well as bought.
THE GORGONZOLA DOP
Gorgonzola
is a soft table cheese produced from whole pasteurised cow’s milk, poured into
container units at a temperature of about 30°C with the addition of fermented
milk bacteria, rennet and penicillin spores. Once branded to show the origin,
the cheese proceeds to the salting and seasoning stages; when the cheese is
still only three or four weeks old, it is pierced with special metal needles
that allow air to enter the paste, causing the typical green/blue streaks (the
so-called erborination).
Gorgonzola is a cheese that apart from its typical streaked appearance, is
furthermore characterised by its particular and lightly piquant flavour. It
would seem that in ancient times this cheese was called “stracchino”, a word
deriving from “stracco”, in other words tired, referring to the transhumance of
the cow herds from the Alps to the Po Valleys.
The name “gorgonzola”, instead, derives from the town of the same name bordering
on Milan, where this famous erborinated cheese would seem to have been produced
for the first time in the year 879.
In the Nineties, the European Community officially acknowledged gorgonzola
cheese, registering it in the listing of DOP products (Denomination of
Protected Origin) on June 12, 1996, with EEC Registration No. 1107/96.
From that moment on, stringent legislation establishes the production standards,
the circumscribed area in which the milk collection and the seasoning take
place; gorgonzola’s DOP territory in fact, encompasses the provinces of Bergamo,
Biella, Brescia, Como, Cremona, Cuneo, Lecco, Lodi, Milan, Novara, Pavia,
Varese, Verbania, Vercelli and the Casale Monferrato area in the province of
Alessandria.
Furthermore, each head of gorgonzola is branded at the origin, indicating the
producer; the Consortium for the Protection of the Gorgonzola Cheese,
which was created in 1970, makes sure that the norms in force are complied with
both in Italy and in foreign countries
THE "BRUTTI E BUONI"
As
far back as 1878, a confectioner in Gavirate, a small town on the Lake Varese,
thought up and created with refined confectionery art, the little handmade
pastries that would become known as “brutti e buoni” (ugly and good),
made of egg whites, sweet almonds, hazel nuts, sugar and vanilla essence. Thanks
to these delicacies Costantino Veniani became one of the best known
confectioners, not only in Gavirate but in all the Varese, with the “brutti e
buoni” representing a symbolic “recall” to this pleasant lakeside town.
In fact, legend has it that even Queen Elena, on her visits to Countess Leopardi
in Ternate, used to pass through Gavirate to buy these special pastries, and
that Giuseppe Verdi, while vacationing in Cuasso al Monte, would often go to
Gavirate, beckoned by the famous “brutti e buoni”.
Round but irregularly shaped, crisp and with a characteristic almond and hazel
nut flavour, they are wrapped in pairs, like sweets; not only are they still
nowadays produced in Gavirate’s confectioneries in true artisan style, but they
are copied even well beyond the local boundaries.
Other typical products of the Varese province:
Gallarate's AMARETTI
Il liquore AMARETTO DI SARONNO
Valcuvia’s CAPRINI fresh goat cheese
DOLCE VARESE
Uboldo’s POTATOES
Lake Maggiore’s FISH
Monate’s PEACHES
Rossi d'Angera
Salumificio Colombo
