Typical cuisine of the Valchiavenna valley Lake Como Italy

Bris & agrave; ola "Santa di Chiavenna" & ndash; Bresaola is an air-dried ham made from first-class beef, with an almost ruby red meat color, very low in fat.
Bresaola is pronounced in Chiavenna Bris & agrave; ola and there it is called "Santa di Chiavenna"- Saint of Chiavenna: this is how it is made in Chiavenna, where the specialty originated in the Middle Ages and where it is still produced today by all butchers and called "santa"- holy, is consumed, i.e. without oil or lemon. The poet Carducci loved to taste it in Madesimo, but he also asked for it in Bologna from the Ciocca in the Hotel Cascata, for example on December 16, 1863: "If you can find other well-ripened Bresaola, but not too much , I ask you to send them to me. "

Biscot & igrave; n de Prost : among the typical and exclusive sweet dishes of the Valchiavenna valley, take the" biscot & igrave; n de Prost "took first place. The ingredients are basic, but the recipe is a secret, just as it deserves a unique specialty, because it is made exclusively in the shadow of the imposing bell tower from the 17th century, near the mill Prosto di Piuro made. There are of course imitations in this case, too, but the result is pretty modest.

Grappa all'Iva or Iva infusion: after making schnapps at home for centuries, the inhabitants of the San Giacomo Valley, today better than Spl & uuml; gentally known to be knowledgeable "grap & agrave; t"- Distillers by processing the marc during the long winters that they had bought for little money in the Chiavenna valley. Little by little they dispersed into the large wine regions of northern Italy, where a few dozen of their distilleries are still in operation today. Among the alpine medicinal herbs, the common yarrow, better known here as Iva, is the most widely used because it is effective and at the same time a refined bitters from the mountains.

Wines from Valtellina: in 1888, when the poet Carducci came to Madesimo for the first time, he was invited to a wine cellar for his fiftieth birthday. Several bottles of Sassella were emptied on the label of which the two year-end numbers had been reversed: the year 1884 thus became 1848. So they began to tell about the resistance of October 22nd in the year that a group of volunteers from Valchiavenna gave Tal in Verceia has done to prevent the return of the Austrian soldiers after the failure of the First World War for independence. This is how the poem "A una bottiglia di Valtellina del 1848" was born. A bottle of Veltliner from 1848, which commemorates the glorious deeds.

E tu nel tino bollivi torbido
prigione, quando d'italo spasimo
ottobre Fremdeva e Chiavenna, oh Rezia forte, sheer & ograve; a Vercea
sessanta ancora di morte libera
petti assetati [...].

Bez & uuml ; similar to the Veltliner wines, what Carducci wrote during his summer vacation in Spl & uuml; gental should also be pointed out: