Hints of typical food and cuisine of Emilia-Romagna

More than one regional cuisine, in Emilia Romagna we should speak of a constellation of kitchens, which is the result of almost eight centuries of independence of the cities of Emilia Romagna

The Emilian cuisine - at least the must famus one - is certainly a solid cuisine, tasty and generously seasoned. 'Cuisne Bolognese "or" Cuisine emiliana' are recurrent reminder of restaurants and trattorias throughout Italy, it is almost synonymous with excellent cuisine and abundant nutritious.

Between Emilia of the Legations and the one of Ducati, and in particular, the divergence of the histories have consequences felt in the food and cooking. But while the cuisine of Romagna, embedded for nearly four hundred years in the Papal States, the contrasts of the Emilia's one prevail on affinity, the kitchens of several cities in Emilia up a framework which, while very different, however, it is significant common. It's part of exception the cuisine of Piacenza, significantly influenced by the Lombardy and Liguria, and that of Ferrara, which, by its eccentric position, has developed - and maintained - absolutely peculiar traits.

Just because ruled by powerful noble families, in which the courts used the most celebrated chefs, Emilia has great gastronomic traditions. Throughout the Renaissance and Baroque dominate two 'schools' food: the Roman papal court and Emilia one. At Ferrara is working Giovan Battista Rossetti and Christopher Messisbugo; in Parma, it seems, is serving Cervio Vincenzo, in Bologna render their services Tirelli Giulio Cesare and Bartolomeo Stefani. It is probably the five-sixteenth-century tradition that the kitchen emiliana inheritance of those characters for wealth and prodigality in Bologna (and with it the entire region) is called "La Grassa" (The Fat).

Mainstay of Emilian's kitchen are Pasta courses. First of all, the noodles, and thin sheet of "sfoglia" (pasta) (the flour should be damped with the eggs, is not allowed a single drop of water) are served with Bolognese sauce with meat and tomato or diced ham lightly butter. A variant of the noodles are green, where the dough enters the chard or spinach, which is particularly tasty and delicate are the green noodles all'Ortica (nettle) (take the tops of the nettles, boiled them and then seek to place the spinach).

Banner of Bologna and Modena kitchen, tortellini belong to the family of sheets stuffed with ingredients more or less noble family of ancient origin (it is already present in medieval cookbooks), and widespread throughout the central and northern Italy. Traditionally served in broth with meat, are eaten with cream or sauce.

Among other stuffed pasta at least be cited tortelli (or tortelloni) to lean or even cappelletti that are characterized by the form and filled in the insertion of fine products such as pork mortadella and ham strictly united with the other ingredients meat cooked, eggs, Parmesan cheese and nutmeg, or with payment of ricotta and spinach, the refined anolini tortelli Piacenza and pumpkin (similar to those of Mantua, there is a variant Piacenza and Reggio Emilia, are those of cappellacci pumpkin in Ferrara), not to forget the erbazzone cheese, sort of pie with spinach and other vegetables, all seasoned in large doses of Parmesan cheese and baked in the oven.

Among others main course there must be included:

     * Passatelli (or pastaragia) in broth
     * Imperial soup
     * Real soup
     * I Balanzone
     * Gramigna with sausage
     * Pasta and beans (with many variants)
     * Maltagliati
     * Pasticcio of macaroni crust
     * Garganelli
     * Risotto alla parmigiana
     * I calzagatti
     * Lasagne alla Bolognese
     * The pumpkin soup with porcini mushrooms in Borgotaro
     * Soup "in the bag"

As for the main courses, Emilia is also equipped with the Wiener Schnitzel Bolognese is a rich variation of cutlet Milanese, and the breast of veal (cooked in butter with ham, grana cheese and truffle) is a respectable example of the Great Cuisine translated into "Petroniana"; the stracotto beef, vigorous and aromatic spices, has distinguished ancestors and relatives scattered around the peninsula: the most characteristic are the meat of the horse and donkey. Particularity are the PICULA (dish made of minced meat from horses) and the asinine stracotto of Piacenza, a city where the military horse meat was readily available, as are the stuffed vegetables dell'Appennino piacentino or tip of veal stuffed ( "button" or "pocket"), leaving a matrix ligurian discovery. Spread along the River Po is the consumption of the anguilla.

Note: For cutlet Bolognese absolutely do not use the turkey but the calf,

Although Emilia is certainly best known for pasta dishes are also many seconds, of which we can cite:

     * The Grand Fried Bologna style
     * The "stick" of the Bologna
     * The mixed boiled meats with typical Bolognese sauces
     * The many  "hunter" (chicken, rabbit, etc.)
     * The "straccetti"
     * The escalope with balsamic vinegar;
     * Pigeons (specifically the "Torresani) roast;
     * The roast capon;
     * The "escaped birds";
     * The polpettone tuna;

Sausages boiled specific to:

     * Cotechino
     * Zampone
     * Cappello del prete
     * Salama da sugo
     * Salame cotto piacentino

In Emilia  ther'is a big production of sausages and for variety and value is unparalleled. Mortadella of Bologna, pork and beef, is a sausage  of noble birth and superb taste, unjustly underrated by the mildness of the price, and the mortadella di Modena made by pure pork. The ham "Prosciutto di Parma" (or rather Langhirano) reach a wonderful balance of sweetness and flavor. Culatello, obtained with the "heart" of ham, salami is a regal, equally the fiocchetti. A Feline, in Parma, there is a salami seasoned in accordance with best practice and the intense taste, another superb salami produced in the same zone is "cooked shoulder of San Secondo." Mostly known Zamponi and cotechino of Modena: the one and the other entering, steaming, boiled mixed in Bologna, Modena and Reggio Emilia. The salama da sugo di Ferrara, tasty and very spacy, is a fragment of Renaissance cooking came up to us.
Known throughout the world and defined with good reason "the king of cheeses, Parmigiano-Reggiano is an ingredient of many dishes of Emilian Cousine and other regions, traditional and new issue, even if its incomparable fragrance is especially appreciates (and especially if it is stravecchio) when consumed i natural, alone in small flakes. In the province of Piacenza are instead products Grana Padano and Provolone Val Padana. Less famous but certainly parmesan worthy of mention, there are also: the squaquerone, the Casatella and caciotta of Castel San Pietro Terme.

The Emilia, in the plain areas, does not offer great wines. Lambrusco as dry, light and crisp and goes well, paradoxically, more fat with dishes and tasty, as it represent the right opposition, as is a sweet dessert wine of conversation. The Lambrusco produced in the municipalities of Sorbara, Santa Croce, Castelvetro and other municipalities in the province of Modena is a wine of Denomination of Controlled Origin (DOC) and the Lambrusco Reggiano.
In hilly areas are produced wines worthy of note as the hills of Bologna Pignoletto or Malvasia, the Gutturnio, the Ortrugo and Bonarda Piacentino products under the label Colli Piacentini. In the area of Scandiano it also produces the White Scandiano (DOC) in the Dry and Sweet versions.

Worthy of attention it's also the red Eliceo Bosco (Ferrara and Ravenna) and Sauvignon (also Passito) and Cabernet Sauvignon (near Bologna).

The poverty of Romagna cusine was influenced first by the presence of small lordships turbulent and unstable, with the partial exception of Malatesta and then the long and heavy domain of the State of the Church.

The characters of the cusine romagnola are extremely simple and farmers, the contribution of maritime culture is of little weight and does not extend beyond the coastal zone. The number of dishes is small, so small is the tradition salumiera and cheese. Certainly we can not share the recipe of Artusi, a native of Forlimpopoli at Forlì, in the traditional cuisine of Romagna, where it is the brilliant synthesis of food and culinary uses of the entire bourgeois central-northern Italy, much influenced by French cuisine.

It is, however, true that the work of the Artusi draws largely to the traditions of the cuisine of Romagna, so it is very useful for an initial research on these plates, as illustrated by the "use of Romagna, which often appears in the presentation of the recipes.

In 1913 Antonio Sassi runs an initial survey of the cuisine "of the people, which retains many of the old customs." The catalog is only five items: the cappellettiRomagna, which is called "compensation", unlike those, the same name, the e dell'Emilia Bologna), the passatelli, called the "dry pappardelle dressed in perfect rule, the roast chicken and piadina, which varies from area to area size and cooking.

Drawing from extensive literature on popular culture Romagnola (from the Battarra Cirelli, from the Rural Placucci), you can retrieve other traditional dishes, not all survivors among the first courses the "tardura '(a soup of egg, cheese and bread crumbs ), the "manfrigoli, dinners eaten in the funeral, the return from the funeral, gnocchi, lasagne and baked macaroni, among the main courses chicken stew, meat boiled and fried meat includes sausages sausage, salami, prosciutto and coppa; between the sweet 'bracciatello' round donut hole with the classic, the "sabadoni, tortelli stuffed with chestnuts and cooked marmalade of apples, pears, quince or figs, and the 'saba' a syrup produced by the reduction in slow fire of grape must, red or white, used to wet the sabadoni.

Were these, plates of solemn occasions, of the great feasts of the cycle of the year (Christmas and Carnival) and the cycle of life (birth, marriage, death). The kitchen was working and aims to support heat (soup and vegetable soup) or brutally silence the hungry (crushed, flat, granite sweet corn flour).

The identity culinary Romagnola is, rather than a list of typical dishes in a complex of knowledge, especially popular. The first and oldest of these is knowledge - the word "culture" is not embarrassed - the "culture of salads", that is, edible plant, which has grown spontaneously: hundreds of species in the safe knowledge, transmitted from mother to daughter , held up until very recently. Of this knowledge, which is common to the Romagna, the MontefeltroPesaro, there remains an extraordinary witness to the sixteenth century: the letter written on salads in 1565 by physician Costanzo Felici. Catalog of all food plants, the Letter lists 180 varieties in addition to the herbs that are used in salads and those you use to cook, bulbs, roots, fruits, berries, cereals, pulses, spices, mushrooms and truffles. Of the many species Felici handed to the uses in the kitchen.

A wide and refined culture is - closely connected with the soup - the more 'home made', to be able, (dialect) 'smortadòva, namely flour and eggs, without water, the more, more subtle or not, you get the noodles, the noodles, the squares, the maltagliati, the strichetti (or bow tie), the malfattini, the garganelli in Ravenna, and the stuffed pasta such as cappelletti, Christmas dish par excellence, and ravioli, stuffed with spinach and ricotta. With the more eggs are made without the twists' strozzapreti. The art of pastry also has full citizenship preparation PIADA - Full and thick (except in Cesena, where it was seasoned with lard, thin seasoned with olive oil in Rimini and Montefeltro) - and 'cress' herb of fields.

Knowledge no less extensive and sophisticated, albeit restricted to the coastal strip, is that fish and other marine animals. Bellosi Quondamatteo and, in Romagna civilization, listed 165 species of fish, crustaceans and molluscs of the Adriatic Sea with their name in dialect. It lists 213 in 1576, the lawyer, writer and naturalist Malatesta Fiordo, author of a Operetta nature and quality of all fish that sings in octaves all that lives and reproduces in marine and river transport. The summit of seafood cuisine is the 'soup', which is required in Romagna and sturdy home, full of canned tomatoes, vinegar and black pepper, the capital of soup are Cesenatico and Cattolica. Equally decided is the flavor of grilled fish (the rustìda '), as they spit over and protected by a panatura with garlic and parsley. Fish soups - removed the risotto, spaghetti with clams and squid to quadrucci - are all of recent origin. (other form as is or as a filling, in and