Butter, rice and blue-veined cheese

The border with the rest of Italy is felt at the table. On the plain rice has been grown for five hundred years, cattle have always been kept and the cooking fat is butter: the result is long, rich dishes, very different from the south. In the mountains it is another cuisine again, of rye, buckwheat and mountain-dairy cheese.

Rice

The Lomellina, between Pavia and the Ticino, is one of the largest rice-growing areas in Europe: in summer it is all sheets of water. Risotto alla milanese is yellow with saffron and made with marrow; in Mantua it is made with lake fish or with pumpkin; around Cremona with vegetables. Rice is also why campsites on the plain are few: good land is needed for other things.

The cheeses

Lombardy makes more protected cheeses than any other region: gorgonzola, taleggio, grana padano, bitto, valtellina casera, quartirolo, provolone. Bitto and casera are made in the Valtellina and are the base of pizzoccheri, the buckwheat pasta with cabbage and potato that in the mountains is everyday food.

The rest

Cassoeula is the winter dish, of cabbage and pork. Casoncelli from Bergamo and Brescia are stuffed pasta with butter and pancetta. In Mantua they eat pumpkin tortelli, sweet and with mostarda inside. Cremona has mostarda and nougat. Panettone is Milanese and is now sold all year, though it should not be.

To drink

The Franciacorta, between Brescia and Lake Iseo, makes the best-known traditional-method sparkling wine in Italy. The Oltrepo Pavese makes reds and sparkling wine in quantity. In the Valtellina nebbiolo is grown on vertical terraces: out come Sforzato, Grumello and Inferno, mountain wines with the most alarming names going.