Friuli-Venezia Giulia

Friuli-Venezia Giulia—a small, historically tumultuous area bordering on Austria, Slovenia, and Croatia—is not a region with an easy history, largely because it sits on a key trading port that has been fought over since the time of the ancient Romans.

Both the food and the wine of the area are a symbol of identity, a point of pride for locals. In Friuli-Venezia Giulia, people take their food and wine very seriously. Cooks ritually prepare five-course family meals, make fillings for fresh pasta that contain as many as forty ingredients, and raise the preparation of polenta and gnocchi to an art form.

Antipasti include frico (see recipe in related links) and the subtle Prosciutto from the town of San Daniele (connoisseurs prefer it to saltier Prosciutto di Parma, but you decide). Favored first courses are gnocchi, mostly made from potatoes, and heaping mounds of polenta topped with everything imaginable: salt cod, melted Montasio cheese, a hearty pork ragù. Bean soups abound, and many are flavored with a ham bone. But the most representative soup of all is jota, a thick smoked pork and sauerkraut soup with clear Austrian origins. There are as many versions of jota as there are cooks; some include barley, others include pork rind or beans.

Near the coast, especially in Trieste, cooks rely on fish and seafood more often than meat. The seafood cuisine is different from elsewhere in Italy, for it makes use of fresh herbs like dill and tarragon, fruits and vegetables like apples and horseradish, and delicately tangy sour cream, ingredients that are almost never seen in other regional Italian cuisines. Pork is the region's most beloved meat; mountain and hill cookery draws inspiration and sustenance from the pig's versatile meat, and transforms every part of the animal into something edible. Lamb, chicken, beef, and veal are also brought to the table, and they are frequently doused in wine while braising to perfection. Staple vegetables are potatoes, cabbage, and beans, but the most typical Friulian side dish is a preparation called brovade, made by fermenting turnips with grape skins in covered containers.

Friuli-Venezia Giulia's dessert table shows a palpable Austro-Hungarian imprint: there are all manners of fruit dumplings rolled in cinnamon butter and bread crumbs, as well as a variety of nut- or cheese- or fruit-filled strudels. All of these regional specialties are exalted by a proper pairing with one of Friuli-Venezia Giulia's renowned wines. Verduzzo and Ribolla Gialla, two crisp whites, pair splendidly with the region's seafood dishes, and dessert wines like Picolit express the grapes' distinctive character and make the sweet course a memorable experience.