Tickling your Taste Buds in Umbria

The central Italian region of Umbria is all about food, (as most of Italy appears to be!). The simple, rustic country cooking is testimony to its rural history. We give you some seasonal specialities of Umbria that you really should not miss.

Affettati (cold cuts):  The staple meat of the Umbrian diet is pork, lovingly dried and cured into an amazing array of salame, prosciutto, dried sausage, and pancetta. Most rural families butcher their own pig during the winter, and by spring are shaving off paper-thin slices of salty prosciutto or chunks of peppery corallina.

Local foraging: Foraging for wild produce in the Umbrian mountains continues year round and local rural families rely on this to supplement their food. Delicious blackberries in the summer, mushroom hunting in the autumn and when Spring comes, wild asparagus in abundance.

Porchetta:
Everyone welcomes summer, the season of street food where you can buy a towering roast pork sandwich. This crispy yet moist, lean yet fatty, mild yet savory delicacy is a whole pig deboned, then stuffed with garlic, rosemary, fennel, and a variety of other wild herbs and cooked on a spit over a wood fire. Porchettai (vendors) can be found in piazzas across Umbria, pitching their mouthwatering sandwiches from white vans..

Torta al Testo:
Summer is also the season for local food festivals which are usually organized around a central ingredient or dish — the roast goose sagra, the porcini sagra, the polenta sagra all served with the stable diet of Umbrian cooking:  torta al testo - a flatbread (torta) cooked on a round metal or stone griddle which was traditionally set over the coals. It is usually served stuffed with grilled sausages, prosciutto, cooked greens, or soft cheese and arugula…or plain, as a substitute for bread with a meat course.

Wine:
During Autumn, local wineries harvest their grapes fom the rolling vineyard covered hills, and brew up some of Italy's best vino: Montefalco's fullbodied red (Sagrantino) and crisp whites from Orvieto and Torgiano.  Visit the boutique local vintners and taste their wines at the source. Try La Strada del Sagantino's website to help you plan a visit.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil:
Just as the grape harvest finishes, the olive harvest begins. Across the hills and through the valleys, you can see the olive groves come alive with pickers.  During the months of November and December, small towns in the oil producing area host Frantoi Aperti when one can visit the olive oil mills, taste the peppery new oil, and participate in dinners with autumn fare and live jazz or classical concerts.

Truffles:
More precious than gold, the prized white truffle is one of the most expensive foods in the world and despite being found year round, they grow in very few places.  More delicate in flavour than the black truffle, they should be grated over pasta, used in sauces or to simply flavour frittatas and pates.

There are three main truffle fairs in Umbria every winter – Città di Castello, Valtopina, and Norcia — where you can sample truffle products from across the region.