Typical Lake Como cuisine

Dishes of Lake Como

While Larian cuisine predominates the lake, rustic mountain flavours are not lacking, nor are hillside delights. Mountain and hill are caretakers of that humble and genuine tradition that has as its symbols polenta taragna, made of buckwheat, or polenta uncia: seasoned with butter, garlic and cheeses, or toc variante bellagina, a very refined dish which is difficult to prepare. On the tables of the lake Como the fritto misto di lago (fried-mix of lake fish) has a place of honour: many alborelle and agoni to be fried in iron frying pan after being floured, bottatrice, fillets of perch and lavarello (a common whitefish), to be cooked breaded with egg in butter and sage with a drip of oil.

Fish in carpione, fried and then marinated in vinegar, onion, and laurel, is a relative of fish in green sauce, grilled and marinated in a sauce of parsley, breadcrumbs with vinegar, capers, anchovies, garlic, egg yolks, and oil of olive (lavarelli, agoni and salmerini are ideal). The typical dish of the Dishes of Lake Como is Missoltini or missultin, agoni caught in May, sun-dried and conserved in layers, with bay leaves, in the missolta, a container closed by a wooden, weighted cover, so that the missoltinis remain “under pressure” for a few months. They are eaten lightly grilled, sprayed with oil and vinegar, with toasted polenta and red wine.

As to desserts, the Miascia is a cake of ancient origins: it is made by mixing stale bread, milk, eggs, sugar, butter, apples or pears, pine nuts, raisins and, at discretion, crumbed macaroons, dark chocolate, lemon zest. The Masigott is a rustic and crumbly dough, with a characteristic semi-spherical form, made of white flour and buckwheat, sugar, butter, eggs, raisins, pine nuts, candied oranges and yeast.