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SLOW GOING: Piemonte is home to white truffles, Barolo and a university of Slow Food

By CINDA CHAVICH

(Turin, Italy) - For anyone interested in local, artisan food, a tour through the vineyards and valleys of Italy’s Piedmont region is a must.

Not only is Piedmont home to Barolo and Barbaresco – arguably two of the world’s top wines – the rare white truffles of Alba are found here, there are massive Piemontese cattle for steamy bolito misto dinners, the world’s snail capital, and a town where the region’s famed hazelnut and chocolate confections have become a global business.

Piemonte is also ground zero for the Slow Food movement, where founder Carlos Petrini and his followers have created the international Slow Food university – a monument to the subject of good food, carefully and authentically prepared, made or grown - and where every two years Slow Food devotees gather to celebrate artisan food producers and farmers from every corner of the world.

With a car, and a few well-planned days, you can explore Piedmont’s famous food and wine, with your wine-tastings interspersed with visits to some of the finest food shops and restaurants in the land.

From Turin, the road heads south to Asti, Alba, Dogliani and Bra, and it is within the tight triangle of the towns – the Langhe - where we find the slow life alive and well.

TURIN’S TREASURES

The appreciation of fine food isn’t new to Turin, for this now industrial city (home to the original 1899 Fiat factory), was also the capital of the Kingdom of Savoy until Italy was unified in 1864. So despite its reputation as Italy’s car capital, Turin has taste for the finer things.

Chocolatier Guido Gobino is a case in point. Gobino has perfected the giandujotto, the traditional chocolate and hazelnut confection that morphed into the spherical sweet we all know as Ferrero Rocher.

Giandujotto is a classic regional specialty, created in the late 1800s using the fragrant hazelnuts grown in the Langhe region. A visit to Gobino’s historic shop in downtown Turin is essential, both to taste his beautifully-presented products and to enjoy his chocolate “experience” – a small sensory museum devoted to the cocoa bean. www.guidogobino.it

While Turin has its share of elegant, historic architecture, several industrial areas were redeveloped for the 2006 Winter Olympics and now house new businesses in modern, architecturally stunning spaces.

Eataly is one of the most memorable spots – a repurposed vermouth factory that now houses the world’s first slow food supermarket.

Set up like an outdoor market place, complete with a fresh pasta shop, meat market, fish shop and “out door” vegetable stands beneath a vaulted glass roof, Eataly is a food lover’s dream. Not only can you learn everything about the local, artisan products of Italy, there are tasting bars throughout the sprawling space where you can sit down to taste everything from the local handmade pasta to seasonal specialties like white truffles or oysters. A forest of whole prosciutto hams hangs in the deli, and the cheese counter overflows with wheels of every Italian cheese imaginable. Don’t miss the fine wine shop downstairs. www.eatalytorino.it

SLOW FOOD 101

The Slow Food movement arose in Italy in 1986 – a spontaneous backlash to the arrival of fast food giant Macdonald’s, a symbol of the the pervasive “virus” of the fast life, and in defense of regional food traditions and the time needed to make and enjoy them.

The movement is now global and Petrini’s University of Gastronomic Sciences, located in Pollenzo, near the slow food headquarters in Bra, this is a must-see on the food route. www.unisg.it

Opened in 2004, the university, with its elegant restaurant and four-star hotel, is set in a restored country estate, built in 1830 for the then King of Savoy. The campus, which attracts students from around the world, is dedicated entirely to the study of food culture and gastronomy, with an emphasis on sustainable farming. Tour the spectacular cellar – the “Wine Bank” holds wines from 300 Italian producers – and visit Guido restaurant for traditional Piemontese dishes and innovative seafood creations. Don’t miss the tender hand-pinched agnolotti plin filled with pork, beef and rabbit. www.guidoristorante.it wwwalbergoagenzia.it

ASTI AND ENVIRONS

Paulo Saracco is the King of Moscato, taking this the sweet low-alcohol sparkler from Asti into new premium territory. The aromatic grape makes a beguiling still aperitif, too – the famed Moscato d’Asti - sweet yet mouth watering, here in the poor soils in vineyards that are almost vertical, and Saracco is one of 50 producers who still coax a crop from the steep, terraced terrain.

The village Castiglione Tinella, with its ancient streets and small Albergo Castiglione hotel, makes a good base for exploring Asti or neighboring Roero.

Plan to eat in the restaurant of the Bottega del Vino here, or you can have a simple meal or a glass of wine at the tiny Verde Rame Osteria.

Otherwise plant to stay at the Villa Tiboldi outside Canale, an elegant inn next to Malvira winery. With a fine restaurant and cooking school, this is the perfect place for a foodie in truffle season. (www.villatiboli.it)

TASTING TRUFFLES

While Alba is home to the Ferrero Rocher factory – turning out the familiar foil-wrapped bonbons and Nutella for the world – it is the white truffle of Alba that is most revered food product from this region.

During truffle season – from October through to December – international buyers, chefs and food lovers converge on Alba to obtain the freshest and largest specimens of tartufo bianco, the world’s most expensive and rare mushroom. There are weekend truffle markets in the narrow medieval streets of Alba, and truffle menus in restaurants throughout the region, where you can have a few grams of the aromatic, musky fungus shaved over your plate of pasta for a mere 40-50 euros.

But perhaps the best place to enjoy your truffle fix is in the Michelin starred All’Enoteca, chef David Palluda’s stellar restaurant above Roero’s Enoteca Regionale in Canale, an elegant room with impeccable service and incredible food.

After an amuse bouche – paper cones of crispy fried anchovies and a bite of tuna and roasted yellow pepper - there’s a litany of delicacies, from rare duck breast topped artfully with foie gras to an addictive combination of soft boiled egg, cheese fonduta and shaved white truffles, a simple combination defies description. Wildly expensive but unforgettable.

DINING IN DOGLIANI AND ENVIRONS

While not every town has an important restaurant, most have a

communal enoteca or bottega where you can taste the local wine.

In Dogliani, the Bottega del Vino is located in the vaulted cellars beneath the historic town hall, a former 16th-century monastery, where you can taste wine from nearly 50 local producers.

Piedmonte literally translates as “at the foot of the mountains” and nowhere is this more evident than in the steep vineyards of Dogliani, gateway to the “Alta (upper) Langhe”. The rugged landscape has long been home to small family farms, growers who work their steep vineyards by hand, using traditional methods. Hazelnut trees grow among the vineyards and it’s common to find nuts for sale in the fall, alongside the new wine. You’ll also find the local hazelnut cake – torta di nocciole – on every menu.

The cheeses made here are “mountain style” – the Castelmango made from the milk of cows that graze in high alpine meadows, and the Murazzano from sheep’s milk. On the menu at small local restaurants, like Trattoria Marsupino in Briaglia, you’ll find the local cheeses in fonduta – cheese sauces – served over the local hand-cut tagliatelle pasta or agnolotti.

SNAIL CITY

Cherasco is another of Piedmont’s pretty hilltop towns – home to museums and galleries set in medieval palaces, and the

International Snail Culture Institute was born, snail capital of the world. But even if lumache in garlic butter aren’t your style, you’ll want to check out the chocolate versions at Barbero, a charming historic chocolate and pastry shop (on the national registry of historic shops) where they specialize in combining the local hazelnuts with chocolate in all kinds of confections. Bring home a bag of their dark chocolate kisses (Baci di Cherasco, made here since 1881) for someone you love.

BARBARESCO AND BAROLO

Go 10 km north from Alba and you’re in Barbaresco. Go south and you’re in Barolo.

The former is the kind of gorgeous hilltop hamlet that says Italy – sitting high above the Nebbiolo vineyards that are shrouded in fog first thing in the morning. Step into the Produttori del Barbaresco, the local co-operative of 50 producers, known for their fine wines, to taste. Then stay for lunch next door at Trattoria Antica Torre, where the hand-rolled and cut tarajin noodles are part of every meal, and in truffle season they let you select your own truffle at the table, then buy it and shave it over your meal at will.

Continue along the Tanaro River to Rocchetta Tanaro, to visit Braida’s winery to taste their oak-aged Barbera, and dine at the wonderful trattoria run by the Bologna family. Not only do they have a “cellar” in the dining room where you can choose your own bottle, the specialties, like Vitello con Tonno (pink slices of veal with a creamy tuna sauce) and tiny, hand pinched agnolotti del plin may be the best you’ll ever taste. Don’t miss the crispy grissini and mother-in-law’s tongues at the local Fongo family bakery.

HOLY COWS

The beef in these parts comes from the celebrated “fat ox”, the local Bovine di Razza Piemontese.

At an average of 2,000 pounds when mature, this may well be the beef world’s largest breed. It’s the kind of artisan beef you’ll see on the meat counter at the Eataly slow food supermarket in Turin. And it’s the cow that’s paraded through the streets of Carrù every December, scrubbed and draped in finery, before the annual show and sale.

It’s also here that you can indulge in a regional dish – the famous bollito misto. At Vascello d’Oro, carts piled with steaming bits of boiled beef and root vegetables roll past your table and waiters carve slabs of beef cheeks, tongue and other oddly recognizable bits, to serve alongside the intense Dolcettos of Dogliani.

It’s clear Italians have a far more visceral connection to their local ingredients than we do.

That’s also evident in Dogliani during the annual La Cisrà festival held in the market square in November to celebrate the harvest. Like they have for hundreds of years, the locals gather to share big bowls of traditional tripe and garbanzo been soup, the kind of food that once sustained the peasant farmers who brought their produce here at the end of every season.

(This story first appeared in Wine Access magazine)

Food tourism: A slow-food tour of Piedmonte

Food comes first in Italy’s Piedmont region.