Closer to France Than Rome, Piemonte Is Drawn To Butter

At The Foot of The Mountains
Piemonte has had a foot in Gaulic culture for most of it’s inhabited history. First settled by the Celts and Ligurians, it was brought into the Roman Empire in 220 BC. After the fall of the Roman empire, the former Pedemontium was the target of conquest for many other nations (Goths, Burgundians, Byzantines, Longobards, Franks, Hungarians and Saracens) until it was finally started on the path of unification by Emanuele Filiberto of Savoia (in France) who started to unit the various counties and marches in 1559 . This effort was not completed until the House of Savoy finalized unification in 1748. So you may ask, “Why the short history lesson?”

It is difficult to understand Piemontese cuisine without understanding a bit of it’s history. Piemonte is strategically located just to the south of the Alps. Anyone with territorial or economic aspirations either north or south of the Alps must go through or in Piemonte’s history, own Piemonte. This historical eddy south of the Alps created a mixture of cultures and cuisines that continue to be seen in today’s Piemontese cuisine. My two days of instruction in Piemontese regional cooking reflected this mixture of culture and cusine.

Our chef and teacher was Alessandra Bugliuone di Monale. Her knowledge of Piemontese cuisine was based on a family history of restaurants and hotels near Alba in Piemonte. Her family owns Castello di Verduno which is a world class restaurant and hotel that produces their own wine from Verduno and Barbaresco. Interestingly, the estate was purchased by her grand father in 1950 when he returned from his military post in Eritrea. It has been in her family since then.

The main thing to know about Piemontese cuisine is their choice of fat. They cook with more butter than olive oil or animal fats. This is a more French style versus the olive oils of central and souther Italy. During the class, we also used a lot of milk and cream, again pointing more north and west than south. As I was reviewing the recipes for this post, I also noted that none of them used tomatoes. I know there are seasonal dishes in Piemonte that do use them, but that was not being taught as we headed into winter.

This French influence is also reflected in their language because at it’s root, Piemontese is a form of Occitan which is known as the Lenga d’Oc in France and is a dialect spoken in southern France. When you are in the mountains above Turino it is a bit of a shock to have someone speaking a form of French instead of Italian. Alessandra often commented on the words used in her kitchen were French versus Italian.

Day One – preparing for Day Two…

As is often the case in professional kitchen you are cooking today for the basis of tomorrow’s dishes. We did a lot of that the first day. Making brodo from a gallina bionda piemontese (blond chicken) and cooking a fassone piemontese calf’s head. As usual, there was a lot of chopping and sauteing.