The unbearable typical cuisine of Liguria, between history and taste
You can’t visit Liguria without tasting these delicacies, typical cuisine of Liguria that passes down from a generation to another. Liguria is characterized by a pretty varied cuisine and its culinary tradition mixes the coast and the hinterland: fish, aromatic herbs, vegetables and pulses.
Pesto doesn’t need to be introduced, but Liguria has plenty of dishes, less famous but absolutely delicious. Here we are going to advise you 4 traditional and delicious dishes to not be missed.
Typical cuisine of Liguria: Barbagiuai of Ventimiglia
A thin, crispy and fried puff pastry with a soft stuffing of ricotta, rice and pumpkin; Barbagiuai is a typical recipe of Ventimiglia and also Val Nervia in the province of Imperia. The history tells that a certain Uncle Giovanni, in the dialect of Liguria “Barba Giuai”, invented the preparation giving his name to the dish. Its peculiarity is cheese used: a fermented and sour ricotta, produced in the Val Nervia, which fit perfectly with the sweetness of the pumpkin. Barbagiuia are delicious both warm and cold, in fact the peasant were used to bring this food with them in the fields. Besides the original version, they can be also with the chard or without rice.
Typical cuisine of Liguria: Panissa
The chickpeas flour is an unavoidable element in the cuisine of Liguria, used for hundreds of recipes such as Farinata and Panisse. It is an ancient recipe, typical of the local, simple but tasty cuisine. It is a kind of fried cornmeal mush to take away or to eat seasoned. Panissa is prepared cooking a chickpeas mush that dries, becoming solid. Once cold it is diced and seasoned with lemon, onion and oil; or it can be cut in sticks and fried. A curiosity? The same recipe is cooked in the Spanish city of Cadice, obviously because of the frequent sea trade exchanges between the two cities that brought the recipe in Spain.
Typical cuisine of Liguria: Mandilli de Saea cu u tuccu
If you want to eat like a real Genoese, you can’t miss this dish. The name “Mandilli de Saea”, literally a silk tissue, derives from the lightness of the dough and the wide size, which reminds the delicate silk tissues.
The name, now not used anymore in the restaurant’s menus, reminds the ancient and fascinating history of the trade relations with the East, given that it is a mix of Genoese and Arabian dialect. In the 400 the Genoese were the first world exporters of tissues, for this reason the Arabian word mandili arrived in the Italian city and used in the daily language.
Mandili can be eaten with pesto, rigorously beat with the mortar, or “tuccu”, a thick and tasty sauce where the roast beef is cooked.
Typical cuisine of Liguria: Legacci
To round it all off perfectly, you can’t leave Genova without tasting Legaccio Biscuits, the so-called “bescheutti do Lagasso”, from the Genoese neighbourhood with the same name. These dried biscuits are similar to the almond biscuits, except for the anisette and have a long history to tell. They was born in 1593 in the heart of the Legaccio neighbourhood; they look like slices of toasted sweet bread, a kind of sweet rusk, preserved by the fishermen in their boats during the longest travels.
Images’s sources:
liguriaristoranti.com
visitgenoa.it
wikipedia.it
