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Our Best Italian Meal (Among Many)
Date: 11/11/2004Dear International Living Reader,
My husband and I just made an autumn excursion from our home base in Rome into Piemonte--the land of big red wines and the tartufo d'alba (white truffle). The truffles were scarce and pricey, so we settled for funghi porcini on our pasta, but the wine-buying went well.
We avoided the wine towns of Alba, Barbaresco, and Barolo for better bargains and fewer tourists in the lesser known villages of Acqui Terme, Dogliani and Vezza D'Alba, We paid $5.50-$6.50 a bottle for 2002 Dolcettos and Nebbiolos in local cantinas, and, lured by the stylish sign of a private vintner, we followed a winding road past his vineyards of burnished red and golds for a private tasting.
Eating well, while partaking of regional specialties, was also on our agenda and at the end of our mini-trip, I realized I had eaten nothing green for three days. They ought to be doing heart studies in this land of butter, cheese and pork fat…but the red wine should go into the equation as well.
The antipasto here is an on-going affair--a series of four or five tasting courses--or until you say "uncle." Always on the menu is pancetta--an Italian version of bacon, but this one served thinly sliced and uncooked, generously marbled with fat that melts in your mouth. Another specialty from the northern corner of the province is fonduta--a thick sauce of fontina cheese, egg yolks and cream--served on or with a variety of dishes.
Using Osterie D'Italia, a Slow Food guide, for advice, we wound up and up the steep mini-mountains to Madonna della Neve, a restaurant with rooms near Cessole, situated along a wooded valley that produces more hazelnuts than wine. Here we had our best meal, among many good ones.
One of the antipasto dishes was a type of quiche with crumb crust and filling of wild thistles, gobbi, (which taste similar to artichoke), cream, and eggs. I thought that was perhaps the culinary apex, but then came a funghi porcini-filled crepe.
The pasta was agnolotti, a tiny tortellini with savory meat filling, served according to tradition, without a sauce, on a linen napkin and eaten with your fingers. We nobly plodded onward through guinea fowl and venison in a wild mountain berry sauce, with buttered carrots on the side, until we reached our stopping point, with no room for "my mother's hazelnut torte" nor a tiramasu made with Moscato, a dessert wine of the region. With a good bottle of wine, this repast for two cost $78.
Barbara Groom
For International Living
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