01. SEPTEMBER 2016 Eating and Drinking in the Val Pusteria: The Best of Three Worlds

Winter - Campo Tures/Brunico/San Vigilio - Dolomites

The Val Pusteria in -Südtirol has a unique cooking culture: three cuisines – the German, Italian, and Ladin – have lived side by side for decades, mutually influencing and enriching each other. And: all three are in the process of reinventing themselves. A view into the saucepans.

The Val Pusteria-Pustertal valley is a melting pot of a very special kind: it is the home of German, Italian, and Ladin cultural communities, combining not only their languages, histories, and lifestyles, but also their good taste. The three cuisines have developed under different circumstances, but they have also lastingly shaped each other. The results are surprising creations that combine the best of three worlds. And it has to do with more than just tasting good – it’s also about healthy eating. In addition to local and seasonal products, old medicinal herbs are being used more and more, nearly forgotten ingredients that have proven themselves to be both tasty and beneficial. Cooking is once again the way it was in Grandma’s day. But traditional dishes are being reinterpreted.

In historical terms, the German and Ladin cuisine of the Val Pusteria is the cuisine of poor people. Not very much grew on the infertile valley floors and mountain slopes: potatoes, cabbage, beets, poppies, carrots, barley, and rye. Although the people turned necessity into a virtue: from whatever they had available, they created a hearty and down-to-earth cuisine with speck farmer’s bacon, Tyrolean Knödel dumplings, and Schlutzkrapfen ravioli. Fresh meat used to be a rare delicacy. Livestock was butchered only once a year, usually the family hog at Christmastime. There were no freezers. In order to keep food, it had to be boiled (and thus the abundance of sauerkrauts in the Val Pusteria cuisine) or else the meat had to be cured (pickled) or else smoked. With curing, the meat is treated with salt and spices, while with smoking, it is then subsequently hung in the chimney of a woodburning stove and dried in the smoke. At the Plazores Farm in San Vigilio, both techniques are still applied today the way they were in grandma’s time.

Even though similar ingredients were available everywhere, each valley put its own signature on the dishes. In the Ladin Val Badia-Gadertal, for instance, the Schlutzkrapfen are not boiled in water, as they are in the German-speaking Valle Aurina-Ahrntal, but rather fried in oil and sprinkled with poppy seeds, which in olden days were slurped up like chocolate. Poppy seeds have a calcium content of nearly 2.5 percent and are among the most calcium-rich foods of all.

Each cuisine is captivating because of particularly healthy ingredients. In the Valle Aurina, the Graukäse [aged Tyrolean gray cheese] is made from skim milk and is exceptionally low in fat. Long ago, it was regarded as poor people’s cheese, but today, it is experiencing a Renaissance – for example, as a filling for fagottini pasta.

The godfather of the new wrapping is Italian cuisine. Above all with its pasta dishes and spices, it has provided for variety in the saucepans of the Val Pusteria. After the end of the First World War and annexation of South Tyrol-Südtirol by , more and more Italians moved into the province, and thus they also became acquainted with the advantages of the cuisine of the region. Ravioli made of buckwheat and filled with spinach and chives are conjured up onto the table by Italian chefs in these parts. Since buckwheat tastes like a grain but actually isn’t one, it does not contain any gluten or lectins, that is, proteins which may have a toxic effect. It is especially helpful in cases of diabetes, varicose veins, and high blood pressure.

Background Information

A Colorful Mixture: How the Val Pusteria Arrived at Its Three Cultures

The Val Pusteria in South Tyrol-Südtirol stretches from the Rio Molino-Mühlbach Gap in the west to the international border with in the east. The largest side valleys include the Valle Aurina-Ahrntal and the Valle Anterselva-Antholzertal in which people originating from what is now Germany traditionally live. In the sixth and seventh centuries ad, the area was settled by the Bavarii, which is why the dialects of those valleys are part of the Bavarian family of German dialects.

In Val Badia, which ranges from S. Lorenzo-St. Lorenzen near Brunico to the Sella chain of the Dolomites, the original inhabitants have managed to hang on to their culture and language. The is around two thousand years old and is a mixture of Rhaetian and Vulgar Latin. In South Tyrol-Südtirol, it is spoken not only in the Val Badia-Gadertal, but also in the Val Gardena-Grödnertal. It is the third official language of South Tyrol- Südtirol after German and Italian. In the Ladin-speaking valleys, instruction in the schools takes place in all three languages. In the German-speaking schools, Italian is taught as the first foreign language, while in the Italian-speaking schools, that role is held, in turn, by German. After the annexation of South Tyrol-Südtirol by Italy in 1919, the Italians settled primarily in the province’s cities. Public service jobs and the granting of public funds are doled out according to the so-called “proportional representation by ethnicity”, and thus in proportion to the size of each linguistic group. In order to determine that, a census is carried out every ten years. In 2011, out of around 520,000 South Tyroleans-Südtirolers, 69.41% indicated that they belong to the German linguistic group, 26.06% to the Italian, and 4.53% to the Ladin.

The Top! – How South Tyrol’s Restaurants Sweep up Michelin Stars

A total of twenty-three Michelin stars for nineteen restaurants in South Tyrol-Südtirol: out of all of the provinces in Italy, South Tyrol-Südtirol has chalked up the coveted award the most often.

For a list of the prizewinning gourmet restaurants, please see: www.suedtirol.com/genuss/essen-trinken/gourmet-restaurants

Graukäse: How Poor People’s Cheese Became Famous

The Graukäse [aged Tyrolean gray cheese] of the Valle Aurina-Ahrntal is not made from whole milk, but rather from skim milk – for five kilograms of cheese, it takes around fifty liters of milk. No herbs and spices are added to it, nor is rennin used, the enzyme from the stomachs of calves which causes the whole milk, from which other types of cheeses are made, to curdle. The skim milk for the Graukäse is left out for two to three days until it turns sour and is transformed into a thickish liquid. That is heated to 40 to 60 degrees C (around 100 to 140 degrees F) and then left to stand for several hours. After that, a mass similar to ricotta collects, known in the local dialect as the Tschotten. It is skimmed off from the whey, salted, and filled into wooden molds. The cheese ripens for weeks in them. It is first aged at room temperature and then chilled. Its initial white color becomes visibly grayish. The taste and smell are sharp and pungent. Since Graukäse does not have a rind, it has to be eaten as soon as it is ripe.

In 2003, Slow Food, an association dedicated to regional foods, awarded the Valle Aurina Graukäse the title of “Presidio”. This award is received by foods that are unique in their production and taste and are threatened with disappearing from the market. In the Valle Aurina, Graukäse is still made by only twenty to thirty producers who at the very least have a sales license. Graukäse is traditionally served with red wine vinegar and raw onions and eaten with bread, crumbled into the dough of Pressknödel fried dumplings, or sprinkled over another regional specialty, blood pasta. Today it is also found as the prestigious ingredient in Michelin two-star restaurants.

Ravioli Times Three – Different Times Three – Healthy Times Three: German, Italian, and Ladin Specialties at Home

• Plazores Restaurant, San Vigilio (chef: Uli Ties): Cancí checi – “red ravioli”– in the traditional version and as finger food

For the dough, we need (please add the amounts, thanks!): All-purpose flour Steamed, peeled, and mashed potatoes Eggs Cream Salt Yeast Anise seeds

For the fillings, we need for the traditional version: Herbs: Perennial goosefoot (Good King Henry), stinging nettle, and common sorrel Ricotta from cow milk Salt

... and as a modern finger food Soft goat cheese and goat ricotta (from the neighboring Corcela farm) Nitrate-free speck farmer’s bacon (from the Plazoreshof farm) Some olive oil and braised onion Fresh herbs from the garden or wild herbs

For the preparation, we need: Hot oil for frying Poppy seeds, sugar, and melted butter

• Daimer Restaurant, Campo Tures (chef: Dennis Neumair): Homemade beet fagottini filled with fine Graukäse and blackbread crunch

For the filling, we need: 200 g [7 oz.] Valle Aurina Graukäse [aged Tyrolean gray cheese] 200 ml [1 cup] milk 2 egg yolks 30 g [2 tablespoons] butter 1/2 tablespoon chives Salt and pepper to taste

For the dough, we need: 130 g [5 oz.] flour 100 g [4 oz.] semolina flour 2 eggs 1 to 2 tablespoons beet juice 1 tablespoon olive oil

• Tabula Restaurant, Brunico (chef: Domenico La Sala): Buckwheat fagottini filled with white asparagus in a chive or ramson sauce and tempura asparagus

For the fagottini, we need: 200 ml [1 cup] milk 100 g [4 oz.] 00-type pastry flour 100 g [4 oz.] buckwheat flour 3 egg yolks A pinch of salt

For the filling, we need: 1 kg [2 lbs. 3 oz.] white asparagus Approx. 300 ml [1 1/4 cups] asparagus broth 1 shallot 1 tablespoon cornstarch A pinch of salt

For the sauce, we need: 1 bunch of chives or ramsons Approx. 250 ml [1 1/4 cups] asparagus broth 50 ml (2 oz.] liquid cream 1 tablespoon cornstarch A pinch of salt

For the Tempura 200 ml [1 cup] ice cold sparkling mineral water 100 g [4 oz.] 00-type pastry flour

Cancí checi – “red ravioli” Buckwheat fagottini filled with white Homemade beet fagottini filled with fine © Horst Oberrauch asparagus in a chive or ramson sauce and Graukäse and blackbread crunch tempura asparagus © Horst Oberrauch © Horst Oberrauch THREE CULTURES – THREE CUISINES © Nocker Martin