"The Cuneo province cuisine"

A land with thousand facets, Provençal Valleys, wild landscapes with soft grazing grounds, traces of the Saracen culture that still seems to live here, high mountains not far from the sea; an extremely varied gastronomic world, a great multitude of dishes smelling of cheese and milk, and then chestnuts, potatoes, maize, buckwheat, rye, berries, aromatic herbs, mushrooms. Finally excellent meat,  Morozzo capon,  lamb of Sambuco breed, well-known snails and game.
Our traditions are born in a borderland and they are therefore influenced by tastes coming from somewhere else: Provence, Nice, or simply from the Langhe, a place where Castelmagno and Raschera meet the native land of the famous wine from Alba (this kind of borders never prevented people from emigrating and meeting).
Every holiday, every festivity has its own typical dish, and every dish has its own family and collective value: our food follows the course of life and of  seasons, always respecting the fruits of the earth.
Our customs are deeply rooted, our gastronomy is extremely sober, our simple ingredients are masterfully interpreted by a culinary skill, handed on from generation to generation. Sobriety and love for our land, these are the features of our dishes, whose names are very old:  dòba, sebos, abausos, ravioles, fricò, black polenta (maize pudding), mato, donderet, cojëtte, croset, bignette.
Symbolic traditions reminding of the common Provençal origin, the brackish smell of the handcarts, dragged from fair to fair by  sellers of salted anchovies, the sweet taste of grapes mixing with the one of sauté onions and leeks: this is what our charming land offers.

 
Ingredients for 6 people
 
Polenta:
1 Kg potatoes
5 handfuls of buckwheat flour
5 handfuls of wheat flour
2 l water
salt
 
white Bagna:
150 gr. cream
50 gr. butter
3 leeks
1 glass of milk
salt, pepper
 
Preparation
Wash the potatoes and boil them in salty water for 15 minutes. Peel and mash them and pour them out into cooking water. Add little by little wheat flour and buckwheat flour. Cook for 40 minutes and keep stirring.
In the meanwhile prepare the sauce. Brown thinly sliced leeks with butter (pay attention they do not get dry) and cook them for some minutes with cream, milk, salt and pepper.
Pour polenta out into  a serving dish and coat it with white bagna.
 
 
 menù

Ingredients for 8 people
 
8 potatoes
4 leeks
4 leaves of St Peter’s herb
6 spoonfuls of grated cheese
2 handfuls of rice
2 slices of pumpkin
200 gr. cream
120 gr. butter
salt, pepper, nutmeg
 
Preparation 
Boil potatoes without peeling them in salty water.
In the meanwhile prepare the other ingredients. Peel the pumpkin, slice it, and stew it in a pot together with a knob of butter. Slice the leeks thinly and brown them with 30 gr butter, paying attention they do not get dry.
Boil rice for 15 minutes, drain it and keep it aside.
Peel boiled potatoes, mash them and pour them out into a bowl, add St Peter’s herb, salt, pepper and nutmeg and stir together with 100 gr cream and 30 gr butter.
Butter a baking tin, lay some potatoes and leeks, add rice, spread cream and lay the pumpkin. Sprinkle with grated cheese and lay the remaining potatoes and leeks. Finally lay down some butter flakes.
Bake at 180† for 50 minutes and serve hot.
 

menù

(TRADITIONAL VEGETABLE SOUP BAKED IN A WOOD-BURNING OVEN)
for 4 people
 
1û2 kg "Borlotti" beans  – 1û2 kg potatoes – a piece of yellow pumpkin – 2 leeks – 2 carrots – 2 cloves of garlic – a stem of celery – a tuft of parsley – a tuft of basil – 2 pork-chops – oil, salt, pepper.
 
Wash leeks, carrots, garlic and celery. Peel potatoes, onion and pumpkin and chop everything into pieces. Wash the beans throwing away the rotten ones. Lay the pieces of vegetables, the beans and the pork-chops in a big clay pot (Öla). Sprinkle with minced basil and parsley, salt, pepper and add 2 spoonfuls of oil. Cover with about 4 litres of water. Put the lid on and bake in a wood-burning oven for 6 or even 7 hours (do not forget to stir now and then).

menù

 

STEWED SNAILS
for 4 people
 
1kg snails - 2 cloves of garlic – 2 onions – 1 carrot - 1 stem of celery - 5 leaves of laurel - 1 little piece of chilli – 2 spoonfuls of tomato sauce – 1 ladle of meat broth – 1 glass of white dry wine – 30 g butter – olive oil – salt.
 
Pour out the snails into a pot and boil them for two hours in cold salty water. Add an onion, a carrot, a stem of celery and two leaves of laurel. Drain and shell them and eliminate the dark part.
Brown the remaining laurel, minced garlic, onion and parsley with three spoonfuls of oil and a knob of butter and cook for a short time with chilli.
Add tomato sauce, wine and some spoonfuls of  broth to the snails.
Add salt, pepper and cook for an hour and a half. Stir now and then and add some broth if necessary.

menù