Right up to the present day, the culinary tradition of the Reggio Apennines has maintained the ingredients and flavours of the past. The importance of food, not just as a source of sustenance but also as a true gastronomic art, the fruit of creativeness and research, is documented in precious medieval and renaissance recipes that have inspired traditional cuisine. Dishes derived from peasant tradition and recipes prepared in the courts of the feudal overlords. In those days they used game, pork (pigs have always been kept, ever since the Middle Ages), herbs from the fields, pulses and chestnuts, foods high in protein. After a visit to an old town or a castle, you can always be sure to find a restaurant or a trattoria with excellent home cuisine.

You must not miss the cappelletto, the king of first courses, served preferably in meat broth. Like the Modena tortellino, it has the same crown shape that Alessandro Tassoni compared to the navel of Venus. Then potato tortelli, or fritters, a delicate mountain variety of the green and pumpkin tortelli, served with meat sauce; tagliatelle and lasagne with a sauce made of boletus mushrooms.
A traditional dish that is widespread in the hill country of the Apennines is gnocco fritto. This fried dumpling is made of a batter of flour, water and brewer’s yeast, of course accompanied by fine mountain preserved meats such as salame fiorettino, pancetta canusina and culatello from Canossa, all of which date back to the time of Matilda. Roast and stewed meats are never absent, and dishes made from mushrooms and truffles gathered in the woods. The tasty erbazzone must not be missed. This is a typical savoury pie made of chards with added rice, just like the mountain variety, called scarpazzone, originating in the area between Castelnovo ne’ Monti and Carpineti. Then casagai, crisp fried polenta mixed with beans.

An interesting old culinary tradition is linked to mutton, dating back to Byzantine domination and passed down mainly in the middle Apennine area between Baiso and Viano. Families here still make an excellent local product: mutton ham, known as violino, which is particularly dark and tasty. To give a tipsy touch to the meal, sparkling Lambrusco, lightening the calories of a substantial cuisine.

It would not be Reggio Emilia cuisine, or at least it would be very different, if there were not Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese to enrich the flavour of both the finest and the simplest meals. This cheese has been called the best in the world. According to tradition, its history began over eight centuries ago in the Enza valley, which lies between Parma and Reggio Emilia, but in the diocese of Parma, hence the name Parmigiano, or Parmesan, mentioned by Boccaccio and now universally used. An old parchment has recently been discovered, written by the Benedictine monks of Marola Abbey and dated 13 April 1159, where the word “formadio”, which would later be applied to Parmigiano Reggiano, appears for the first time. It is a contract for the lease of lands and woods at Formolaria, now Frombolara di Carpineti, in exchange for money, goods and three large cheeses, “aportos de formadio”.

You must not fail to try the precious traditional balsamic vinegar of Reggio Emilia, a product of the highest gastronomical tradition, where a skill handed down over the centuries becomes a real expression of culture. In the twelfth century, the monk Donizone, the contemporary biographer of Countess Matilda, recalls a “laudatum acetum” that was taken from Canossa in a silver cask as a gift to the Emperor Henry III. The documented history of Reggio Emilia balsamic vinegar, and of its more famous brother from Modena, dates back to the Renaissance; it was then that began the tradition, followed first by noble and then by bourgeois families, of keeping a family vinegar cellar in which to age the cooked must of local grapes.

But the gastronomic experience is not complete unless you taste the desserts such as the traditional trifle, black cake or cellar cake, chestnut tortellini and monte bianco. At the end of the meal, no one can resist nocino, a typical liqueur made of walnuts left to steep in alcohol and sugar.