Pizzoccheri della Valtellina

The story

Pizzoccheri are short, flat buckwheat noodles from Teglio, a village in the mountains above Sondrio in Valtellina, the Alpine valley of northern Lombardy. Buckwheat, called furmentùn in the local dialect, has been grown around Teglio for more than four centuries, and the name pizzoccheri appears in records from the 1700s. The dish is peasant food built from what a mountain household kept through the winter: buckwheat flour, potatoes, savoy cabbage, butter and cheese. The noodles cook in the same pot as the vegetables, then go into a hot dish in layers with the valley’s Casera cheese and a grated aged cheese, and butter browned with garlic is poured over the top. In 2002 Teglio founded the Accademia del Pizzocchero to protect the recipe, and it codified the method: four parts buckwheat flour to one part white flour, dough rolled 2 to 3 millimeters thick and cut into ribbons about 5 millimeters wide. In 2016 Pizzoccheri della Valtellina received protected geographical indication status. Chard or green beans replace the cabbage in other seasons, but potatoes are always there. Have everyone seated before the butter goes on, and serve a green salad alongside.