The plains

Rice, meats, maize, fruits and vegetables: the key ingredients of the sub-Alpine cuisine are products of that priceless agricultural reservoir which is the plain. Rice is king in the lands of Vercelli, Novara, Biella and Alessandria, with five centuries of tradition, making Piedmont the leading rice-producing region, with 114,400 hectares of cultivation. The product has given rise to appetising traditional dishes such as Panissa, or Paniscia, based on rice, beans and lard or Douja salami, a pure pork sausage seasoned and preserved in earthenware vases filled with lard. We should not forget the other precious cold cuts from these areas, such as the liver mortadella and goose salami, or particular meats such as donkey, cooked in stew known as ‘tapulone’, or frogs. The Piedmontese strip of the Padana plain is the home of Grana Padano and Gorgonzola DOP, together with the hand-made tome, robiole and tomini cheeses. Between Cavour and the province of Cuneo, in the land of the Piedmontese Cattle and Carrù Oxen, mixed boiled meat dishes are the main feature, traditionally made from seven types of meat and accompanied by at least three different sauces, as well as beef braised in Barolo or Barbera, raw meat in salad or ‘all’albese’ and the “fast-slow food” Piedmontese hamburger. The most highly prized white meats include the Saluzzo white hen, the Carmagnola grey rabbit  and the Morozzo capon, Slow Food presidia products, as too is the Poirino humped tench, while, among the other freshwater fish typical of the Po valley between Vigone, Carignano and Chivasso, lamprede were once common but are now rare. From the plant world there are the highly-prized Alexandrian Tortonese strawberries, the aromatic herbs from Pancalieri, first and foremost the mint, peppers from Carmagnola, fruit and vegetable from the plane of Saluzzo and Savigliano, including kiwis, apples, pears and peaches. There are also hunchback cardoons from Nizza Monferrato, essential for bagna caoda, Cervere leeks, and beans, asparagus and traditional maize flour. Famous sweets and desserts include Bicciolani from Vercelli, which are aromatic biscuits with cinnamon, cocoa and nutmeg, ‘Pane di San Gaudenzio’ and Novara biscuits in Novara and ‘Brut and Bun’ from Borgomanero. The wines are those from the Novara Hills: the DOCs Fara and Sizzano, which are aged at length and, in particular, the prestigious Ghemme DOCG, and also the ‘Terre del Nebbiolo’ wines from North Piedmont, including Gattinara, Bramaterra, Coste del Sesia and Erbaluce.