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Every year in Armeno
there is a reunion of all those, and they are many, who emigrated in search of their
fortune at the stoves of the greatest kitchens in the world. And then there is much
recounting of dishes, sumptuous banquets, lunches prepared for this or that ambassador,
for this or that minister or ruler. A dream to listen to, a joy to imagine the colors and
tastes of those dishes.
If you are an enthusiastic gastronome, remember that this region produces sausages of
every sort, but a special joy for the palate in the classic Orta mortadella, which you
will find always fresh in the Orta S. Giulio shops that make it. Moreover, don’t
forget to scan the menu for various typical local dishes. One such is tapulon, which , in
fact, is the gastronomic speciality of Borgomanero. This town, some 15 km from Orta S.
Giulio, is said to have been founded by thirteen peasants from the southern Novarese area,
on returning from a votive pilgrimage to the island od S. Giulio in Lake Orta. The
thirteen traveled with a cart drawn by a donkey and, because of a brooken wheel, were
obliged to interupt their journey where the main square of Borgomanero is now. Inasmuch as
the locality appeared favorable and they were not highly esteemed in their village, they
decided to settle there. On the advice of a woman in the group, they further decided to
celebrate the event by killing and cooking the donkey, thus creating the first tapulon in
history. The women chopped up the meat very carefully, added some wine that they had left
and cooked it over a fire, adding garlic, salt and olive oil.
Another topic concerns the local poor man’s dishes, which are not to be found in
restaurants, but form the basis of present-day local recipes.
It must be said that the earth was not very generous to the inhabitants of the Riviera
d’Orta. The fields yielded only rye, maize, millet, barley and oats. Mulberry trees
were cultivated for silk production and chestnuts and walnuts could be collected. Garden
produce - celery, carrots, potatoes, rape, onions, cabbage, persimmons, apples - would be
harvested before the first night frosts of autumn and kept in the cellars, where mainly
wine was kept in barrels set on blocks of granite and held in place by a block of wood on
either side.
In the 1800’s wine was an important source of income. Plantings of the red wine
grapes vespolina, negrona, trebbiana, but above all borgognona, made many local people
rich. These sorts of grape were later developed to the highest quality in favorable nearby
places like Gattinara. Originally, the Orta wine was rather sour, hence often used for
distilling grappa.
The forests have always been very extensive and of fundamental importance for the local
economy. For example, beech wood was used to smoke and flavor meat products, while beech
nuts, properly pressed, yielded oil for lamps and, later on, a coffee substitute. Contrary
to what one might suppose, the mushrooms collected in the woods were usually destined for
sale, being considered a non-essential food and a useful way to making a little money.
The most precious resource of the local population, however, was always the lake, which
contained numberless kinds of fish. For a long period, the number prescribed (meatless)
days reached 130 per year, and the lake’s fish though faced with the competition of
sea fish in the market, was cheaper by far. Hence large catches of perch, whitefish,
trout, char, carp, tench and pike. In 1439 tithes were paid in fish, and in the early
1800’s there was a large eel trap in Omegna where the lake empties into the river
Nigoglia.
Nevertheless, life was hard and did not produce a real local gastronomic culture. Still,
many dishes, improved and developed over the years, were born in the kitchens of our
ancestors. Take first of all bread, the symbol of life. Everything connected with its
production was used , the coals from the oven, bought by tailors to heat their irons.
Bread dough was prepared once a week at home, and, after being given an indentifying mark,
was baked for a fee bt the local baker, who prepared dough only for wealthy families or
those who had no grain to grind.
To prepare the dough, women always kept a lump of fermented dough as a natural yeast to
which flour was added, sieved through utensils made by the umbrella-makeers who plied
their trade from village to village. Their wares were also used for squeezing tomatoes and
straining soup.
The "meliga" bread, once made with maize and wheat flour because wheat was too
costly, has become decidedly rare. "Mistura" bread, the cheapest of all, was
made with a mixture of rye, oat and wheat flour. After the bread was done, the oven was
used for soups and various baked goods composed of bread, broth, onions and bacon, which
were "strengthened" by addition of wine, or cakes made of bread with milk,
butter, sugar, raisins, cinnamon, vanilla.
An alternative to bread was polenta. It might be servede simply with cold milk, with
cheese or else fried in butter and sage. Dried chestnuts were also eaten with milk.
Main dishes normally consisted of boiled meats, of stews, of bird that had been caught or
of the liver-mortadella already mentioned.
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