Umbrian Cooking Food Straight from Mother Earth

Umbria is famous for its black truffles and the many wooded glades where you can find these treasures are closely guarded secrets. A walk through green paths of the province will provide you with lots of natures ingredients; along the field verges you can often find wild asparagus, mint and garlic. During the autumn months the forests are full of porcini and the tiny village of San Leo Bastia holds an annual mushroom festival in recognition of this tasty natural resource.

The province is still heavily wooded and Umbrian recipes often make use of the game that is hunted in them during the autumn and winter months. The most famous product is the wild boar sausage of Norcia famous for their strong flavour.

Other gastronomic delights can be experienced during the truffle festival every November in Citta di Castello, while the village of Cannara near Assisi has a well-respected onion festival every September. Cascia and Città della Pieve are two areas that are notorious for their saffron production and the villages similarly holds a festival to celebrate the fact at the end of October.

Typical Umbrian Recipes include such filling dishes as:
• Cappelletti in brood, is little hat shaped pasta in chicken broth, served with crusty bread
• "Crostini briachi", a typical Umbrian pudding, cakes with chocolate and almonds
• Palombacci alla Perugina, is a roast pigeon, covered in ham and coated in a rich sauce
• Spaghetti alla nursina, is a Norcia speciality with black truffles, garlic and anchovies heated in oil and mixed in with pasta
• Cipollata, onion soup with tomato, salted pork, basil and parmigiano

All Umbrian cuisine designed to fill you up after a good day out in the fields, and with a ready supply of locally grown fresh vegetables, home reared chickens and rabbits, the ingredients don’t get much tastier.