about Soave with food

The district which contains the vineyards of Soave offers a great variety of different crops - available directly from the vegetable garden or from the local fields - and consequently also of culinary ingredients.
At the table, Soave has the great merit of bringing out the full flavour and aromas of these products and of their area of origin.

A potential match, for example, is to combine it with cold cuts or sausages, such as with Verona's famous and ever popular soppressa, with cured ham from Soave itself, or with a spicy cotechino, a dish that is currently very much back in vogue. Since time immemorial, the traditional first course in the Soave area was always soup, either made from vegetables (minestrone) with the addition of beans, or pamojo or panà, bread that had been boiled up and to which a drizzle of olive oil was added.

An alternative was rice with vegetables: savoy or other types of cabbage, i bisi (peas), or with celeriac. Home-made fresh pasta, such as tagliatelle (taiadele in brodo coi fegatini) or lasagnette, was a special Sunday dish, followed by a boiled hen or beef served with various sauces, such as pearà (made from stale bread and cheese), salsa verde (from parsley and anchovies) and cren (finely chopped horseradish).

Nor should we forget bigoli (fat spaghetti), made with a special press from soft wheat flour and served with salted sardines: a dish that is absolutely de rigueur during Lent.
In spring, it was common to use wild herbs - with their obvious health-giving qualities - in the kitchen: so, wild asparagus (le sparasine), hop shoots (i bruscandoli), nettles and many other plants were employed as ingredients in order to give extra flavour to soups, main courses or egg-based dishes.

Another memory is that of a traditional Easter dish: kid basted in Soave and slowly roasted in the oven.
Today, too, in the area of the Colli Scaligeri, the more discriminating chefs like to use some of the zone's other typical products, such as when they serve risotto cooked in Soave wine, radicchio lasagne, mushrooms from the local uplands and - especially - the noble and highly perfumed black truffle (scorzone), grated over a risotto or shaved in thin slivers over potato gnocchi.
Soave is also an ideal foil for snails (known locally as bogoni), which are prepared in a whole host of delicious ways. Every good meal should be concluded with a piece of cheese (either the D.O.P. Monte Veronese from the Lessini Mountains or a Caprino Cimbro made from goat's milk), and, finally, there are the desserts, which put a sweeter complexion on life and which accompany Recioto di Soave to perfection.

These include la fugassa (focaccia), pisòta con l'ua (a cake made with freshly-picked grapes and with olive oil instead of butter), pasta frolla (shortbread), crumbly sbrisolona, moist cherry tarts and, during Carnival, the traditional pastries known as galani and fritelle. At Christmas time, there is the cake called nadalin, sprinkled with almonds, and at Easter the brasadele, which are first of all plunged into boiling water (broè) before being baked in the oven.

Other rather less usual but nonetheless decidedly tasty matches for Recioto di Soave D.O.C.G. are sliced pumpkin, baked in the oven and then covered with a sprinkling of sugar and cinnamon, or i tortei di erba madre (artemisia): two dishes that come from the recipe book of long-forgotten local tradition.