Lombard cuisine

First courses in Lombard cuisine range from risottos to soups and stuffed pasta (in broth or not), and a large choice of second-course meat or fish dishes, due to the many lakes and rivers of Lombardy.

[1] The cuisine of the various Lombardy provinces have the following traits in common: prevalence of rice and stuffed pasta over dry pasta, both butter and olive oil for cooking, dishes cooked for a long time, as well as the widespread use of pork, milk and dairy products, and egg-based preparations, as well as the consumption of polenta, common to the whole of northern Italy.

[2] Lombard cooking has ancient historical roots dating back to the settlement of Celts in the Po Valley.

[4] The most ancient Lombardy dish is cuz, whose preparation has Celtic origins: it is a second course based on lamb that is common in Val Camonica.

Related to the cooking of risotto, but not only, is the use of butter, and sometimes lard, in sautéing and frying instead of oil: the use of butter for cooking food is part of the high regional diffusion of milk and dairy products, Lombardy is the largest producer of milk in Italy with about 40% of the national production, and one of the regions with a greater variety of cheeses.

The common Lombard panorama is completed by the use of recipes based on eggs (omelettes and similar preparations), pork and polenta, shared with the rest of the Po Valley.

[4][6][5] A first approximate subdivision of Lombardy's cooking can be done from a territorial point of view: in the low Po Valley, in the areas where rice is cultivated, risottos will be more common together with vegetables widely cultivated in the plain, whereas as one gets closer to alpine areas will be more common dishes based on game or pasture animals, as well as side dishes based on potatoes and cabbage.

A second classification can be done by taking into account the history of the single provinces and their geographical borders: as it is logical to expect, the eastern Lombard cuisine will have some traits in common with the Venetian one, the western one with the Piedmontese one based on braised meat and stews, the southern one with the Emilian one where preparations based on stuffed pastas predominate, whereas the cuisine of Valtellina will have some traits in common with the Alpine cuisine with a wide use of game, salami and cheese as base or condiment for main courses.

Appetizers include sciatt valtellinesi, crispy buckwheat pancakes filled with cheese which is melted during cooking in butter, nervetti in insalata milanesi, prepared with calf feet, beans and onions, and margottini alla bergamasca, semolina cakes bound with egg, branzi and meat broth.

Among the most common variants there are spinach and hop tops, whereas in the past, in times of economic hardship, ravioli were also filled with wild herbs, such as dandelion, nettles and borage.

Among the most famous examples of dry pasta are pizzoccheri della Valtellina, thick tagliatelle made of buckwheat flour and seasoned with potatoes, savoy cabbage and melted cheese, bigoli con sardelle, bigoli boiled and then browned in the cooking juices of sardines typical of the Mantua area, or bardele coi marai, or borage tagliatelle generally seasoned with butter typical of the Garda area of Brescia.

A renowned soup based on Lombardy's agricultural products is minestrone alla milanese, obtained by boiling the main vegetables growing in the region and flavored with lard and pork rinds.

[13] Other dishes of the poor tradition are the zuppa alla pavese, a soup made with broth, stale bread, eggs and grated cheese, and the pancotto, stale bread soaked in water, cooked in a pot together with butter and with the addition of meat, cooked in the whole region: a sort of "summation" of the two dishes is constituted by the minestra mariconda bresciana, obtained by adding to the previous ingredients also some cow's milk.

On Lake Garda, famous dishes are trout baked with mushrooms and eel Gardesana, cooked on the grill and seasoned with oil and lemon, both typical products of the Benaco.

[18] Eel was once also cooked near rivers, whereas today it has practically disappeared: on the Mantuan banks of the Po, fried fish and pike in sauce are typical.

The most famous Lombard sweets are panettone and colomba, belonging to the Milanese confectionery tradition: by now spread all over Italy, the first one is a typical Christmas cake with a cylindrical shape whose dough is enriched with raisins and candied fruit while the second one is generally consumed during Easter time, with a dough similar to panettone, but shaped like a dove and covered with icing and sugar.

Other Christmas sweets outside the Milanese territory are the bisciola valtellinese, a loaf of bread with a dough similar to panettone with raisins, and the bossolà bresciano, obtained by three successive leavening.

Other famous sweets of the region are Cremona nougat (turòon),[27] according to the legend created by local confectioners for the wedding of Francesco Sforza and Bianca Maria Visconti, and amaretti di Saronno, crispy cookies made of almonds, albumen and armelline.

Typical of western Lombardy are brutti ma buoni from Gavirate, sweets made of almonds and hazelnuts, chiaro di Luna from Paullo, the torta paesana from Brianza, made of cocoa, milk and stale bread, created to reuse bread left over from meals.

Lombardy, thanks to its territorial variety has one of the highest numbers of PDO and PGI products, to be precise 34 (updated January 2019): 14 cheeses, 10 sausages and salami, 4 types of fruits and vegetables, 2 species of fish, 2 designations of olive oil and 1 honey.

[35] Other famous Lombard cheeses worthy of note are Agrì di Valtorta, Bagòss, Branzi, caprini Bergamaschi, Casatta di Corteno Golgi, Casolet, Rosa Camuna, Tombea, Semuda, Zincarlin and Mascarpone, eaten alone or used as a base element for the cream used to accompany panettone.

Typical and common bread in Milan, but also in the rest of western Lombardy, is the rosetta, locally called michetta, blown bread (almost empty inside) and with a "turtle shell" shape derived from the mold used to make the dough, traditionally consumed with cold cuts, especially with mortadella, it was the symbol snack of magut (bricklayers) and workers for its rusticity and low cost.

[44] The 5 Lombardy DOCG denominations are:[45] Famous DOC wines of the region are Buttafuoco, Bonarda and Sangue di Giuda, sweet red wine not passito, from Oltrepò Pavese, Curtefranca and Cellatica, from Franciacorta, Valtenesi, Garda Bresciano and Lugana from the Garda area, Rosso di Valtellina, and Lambrusco Mantovano.

The local grappa producers (grapat de la Val di Giust) were forced to emigrate because of the crisis in Valchiavenna, deprived of its historical traffic of people and goods due to competition from the Simplon Pass: some of the main families of grappa producers in all of northern Italy originate from Valchiavenna, including the Ghelfi, the Vener, the Levi and the Francoli families.

Other liqueurs are Vespetrò from Canzo, made of coriander, anise and orange peel, Ramazzotti bitters created in a store in the center of Milan by the pharmacist of the same name, Acqua di tutto cedro, produced in Salò, and nocino.