The Piedmontese cuisine has been influenced by various factors to be found in the characteristics of the territory and in its history. Here more than anywhere else in Italy there is a clear difference between poor people food and upper class recipes, which have been inherited from a time when Turin was the seat of the royal family and the aristocracy. “Poor food” is earthy and based on agricultural products combined with a clever use of flavours that have created some of the best dishes in the Piedmontese tradition while “rich food” is more elaborate with clear French influences. The effect of a long tradition of upper class food is evident in the particular attention to starters and desserts, which are never missing from a Turin typical meal, as well as the presence of a large variety of meat dishes. Starters usually consist of cured meats, grilled vegetable, beans and other pulses served with bread or grissini. Grissini, called “rubata’” in the local dialect that means “rolled” to recall the preparation technique, are another remainder of the upper classes as in the past grissini were only present in rich households. Meat dishes are very popular in the Piedmontese cuisine, game cooked in red wine and the typical recipe from Turin of “Brasato al Barolo”, slow cooked beef in Barolo wine, which according to the traditional recipe should be left to marinate in the wine for 8 days before cooking. Another traditional dish is the broth of mixed meats, veal, beef and pork served with either red or green dressings.
Turin’s culinary symbol is chocolate and particularly the “Gianduiotto”, a nutty wedge shaped chocolate wrapped in gold coloured paper that was named after Gianduja, a local Commedia dell’Arte mask. Turin claims to have been the birthplace of chocolate as we eat it today, in fact before the 18th century when a machine was invented in Turin to produce solid chocolate, it was only served in a liquid form as a hot drink. Amongst Turin’s sweets and cakes are cocoa bignets, amaretto biscuits, the already mentioned “gianduiotto”, liqueur filled chocolates, and the “savoiardi”, light soft biscuits made only of flour, sugar, egg-yolk and whipped egg-whites.

Finally a note goes to wines from Piedmont known the world over; particularly famous are the reds, amongst which the already mentioned king of wines Barolo, Dolcetto d’Alba and Barbera, but also the sparkling wines produced mainly in the Asti area. We must not forget the Turin’s Vermut, a fine dessert wine that so well accompanies all those cakes and chocolates.