|
Two recipes from the Rovellasca tradition
In the countryside cultivated with wheat, potatoes, and Indian corn, the breeding of silkworms has gradually been lost: this activity had represented for more than a century the only source of income for many families, according to a well-known process: purchasing the "seeds" out of town, following the cocoon on the "moroni" (mulberrytrees), collecting them and giving them to the manufacturers from Como for the transformation into silk, to send in every corner of the world.
(As far as the traditional recipes from Rovellasca are concerned, they are taken from “Così era Rovellasca” - Massimo Soncini)
Potatoes Polenta
- Ingredients for 4 persons
2 kg of potatoes
50 g of butter
5 oil spoons
6 cloves of garlic
fresh tomatoes or
tomato puree
salt to taste
- Preparation
Boil the potatoes with a pinch of salt. Prepare a lightly fried mixture of garlic, oil, and butter. Add the fresh tomatoes or the puree and cook everthing until you get a rather thick mixture. Squeeze the potatoes until you get a puree and add the sauce to it. It can also be served cold.
Polente Cumedada
- Ingredients for 4 persons
0,5 kg of Indian meal
5 oil spoons
30 g of butter
6 cloves of garlic
0,5l. of milk
red wine
Grana Padano cheese
- Preparation
Cook the polenta, cool it off, and then cut it into slices.
Lightly fry garlic and oil, add the milk and let it boil. Put into a baking pan a stratum of polenta, add some lightly fried mixture and wine (2 or 3 spoons for each stratum), add also the grated cheese.
Continue by forming various strata always in the same way. Cook slowly for about half an hour.
|
|
Buseca & buseca
"Buseca", or tripe, is a soup which is more or less appreciated everywhere in Lombardy. The thin strips of tripe are cooked for a long time together with vegetables, and you eat them with the spoon, as they were crumbled fettuccine.
More or less watery, with or without tomatoes (vegetables which have been introduced late in the diet culture of the region): each area is linked to its small variations. In the territory of Lomazzo, under the administration of Como but historically linked to the diocese and to the culture of Milan, a zipper area between Brianza lariana and ambrosiana, also the tripe is linked to the ambrosiana tradition.
The people from Como have introduced "buseca" among the typical local dishes, and they add white beans to it. On the contrary, in Lomazzo, the variation of Milan is used, with vegetables but without beans, enriched sometimes with some pieces of potatoes.
(Taken from “Cucina Lariana” by Marco Riva and Rossano Nistri)
|
