A name, a guarantee. Just read Friuli and on the map identify the names of Montasio, San Daniele, Sauris, Cividale for mouth watering.
Good taste in Friuli Venezia Giulia
You can not go home without having tasted the gubana, the dessert offered to the Pope on a visit to Cividale in 1409: a sweet bread shaped like a snail filled with walnuts, raisins, pine nuts, candied fruit, spices, mixed with honey and sweet wine. The most popular is the puff pastry that you buy at Cividale where they also mix the “little snail”, miniature gubana, and the strucchi, biscuits with the same stuffing. If you stop in Udine inevitable the tour of the tajut (literally “cut”), the cicchetto that you drink at the counter of the many inns scattered around the city.
The Montasio is a relief of the Julian Alps where it is obtained the homonym cheese of whole milk left to mature for two months to over a year. A delight that was also eaten the crusts, trimmed by the workers before bringing the forms into the aging room. The traditional frico, in fact, is an omelette of potatoes, onions and cheese shavings.
Remaining in the field of locally produced cheeses we can not but mention the sisters Annalisa and Jessica Celant (Cheese Factory “Dalle Celant” – via Cansiglio 32/2, Coltura di Polcenigo) that at Malga Costa Cervera in Polcenigo, between Pian Cansiglio and Pian Cavallo produce the “formadi di mont” called Çuç alpine cheese produced during the summer months at high altitude.
Young and determined, they are the ones who, together with the father, take care of the entire production process, from milking to maturing. And it is fascinating to hear them talk about their cheese made with raw milk from the previous evening mixed with fresh milk and then matured for up to a year. Their ricotta is mythical!
Of the grand tradition the cjarsons, potato ravioli which we enjoyed at the Mulino Ferrant (via dei Mulini, 8 – Cassacco), an ancient 18th century mill where you can taste typical Friulian dishes and traditional cuisine, such as potato frico with onion and bacon with polenta and irresistible regional cheeses: from Formadi Frant, produced with the residues of the processing in malga, to the Ubriaco “sot le trape” refined in marc, from caciotta vaccine to goats, from Salted cheese, one of the oldest , up to the semi-hard Latteria and to the Blue Ramandolo, from the bright blue marbling and the pomace of one of the most noble Friulian meditation wines, Ramandolo.
Famous ham with the foot of San Daniele: for purchases and tastings there is only the embarrassment of the choice between ham factories and prosciutterie who sell this exclusive product of the Consortium (www.prosciuttosandaniele.it) and which, established in 1961, associates all producers supervising the correct application of the Production Regulations.
For our visit we were guests of the company Prosciutti Coradazzi (via Kennedy 128 – www.coradazzi.it) and accompanied by the communication manager of the Consortium Nicola Sivilotti and Mrs. Teresa, owner together with the brother of the artisan ham factory. Worn overshoes, headphones and shirts and left Otto by car in the shade, we began the tour between the cold and ventilated cells in which the thighs are placed after being checked and marked on the rind with codes indicating the origin, place of slaughter, start processing and ham production.
Pigs must be born, reared and slaughtered only in Italy in certified and authorized breeding farms. The processing of the thighs that will become hams San Daniele Dop, that is the Denomination of Controlled Origin, contemplates the seasoning, a fundamental phase to determine the taste, softness and scent of the ham that is completely natural, without additives and preservatives and treated exclusively with sea salt.
The seasoning must last at least 13 months in this place that the microclimate has always made unique thanks to the encounter between the cold winds of the Carnic Alps and the salty breezes of the Adriatic mitigated by the morainic lands and the waters of the Tagliamento river.
And it is this ménage à trois that renders the aroma and taste of this inimitable ham with a delicate and at the same time intense taste in the mouth.
Smoked the delicious ham of Sauris, a German-speaking village where an excellent speck is produced. We visited the Wolf ham factory in Sauris di Sotto (www.wolfsauris.it) where since 1862 are produced salami with a unique taste following ancient family recipes handed down from generation to generation.
Hams, speck, salami, bacon and pillows are prepared by selecting quality raw materials and smoked according to the old system with beech wood collected in the surrounding woods and cold, in a sweet and light way that gives the products the unmistakable scent.
But the real irreplaceable ingredient is the territory, the mountain of over 1200 meters above sea level, the fragrant woods, the lake with its very green waters and fresh and pure air.
The best way to taste it? Go to Sauris di Sopra and take a seat at one of the Zahre brewery’s outdoor tables (www.zahrebeer.com), the family-owned company of Sandro and Massimo Petris, one of the first agricultural breweries in Italy to use malt from production own.
A dish of Wolf salami and samples of local cheeses accompanied by a glass of fresh unpasteurized wholemeal beer or filtered with water from the local mountain spring, puts you in peace with the whole world!
The Central European influence is felt in the salami, such as the spicy cevapcici, sausages of various meats seasoned with chilli, the muset, the fresh cotechino served with brovada, turnips macerated in the marc and browned with onion, and in the gulasch, typical dish of the Tarvisio area on the border with Austria and Slovenia.
We recommend stopping at the Valcanale Breeders Cooperative in Ugovizza to buy local cheeses and honey.
A surprise at the table and in the kitchen the jam of Figo Moro produced by the Consortium for its protection and enhancement of Caneva, excellent with bread and butter for breakfast and as a filling for delicious pies.
