Lombardy

Lombardy runs from the Stelvio glaciers to the Po, and reads in three bands. At the top, the Alps and the Valtellina valley. In the middle, the pre-Alpine lakes (Como, Iseo, Garda) and the hills of Franciacorta. Below, the irrigated plain, with water meadows, canals dug from the thirteenth century and the rice paddies of the Lomellina. It is Italy's leading dairy region, and that matters: Grana Padano, Gorgonzola, Taleggio, Quartirolo, Provolone Valpadana, Bitto, Valtellina Casera and Strachitunt all come from here. The province of Bergamo alone holds more protected cheeses than any other province in Europe.

Milan cooks with butter and finishes with lemon zest. Saffron risotto (rice, bone marrow, broth, saffron) is documented from 1809 and remains the template. Ossobuco needs its gremolada; the cotoletta is a bone-in veal chop, thick, breadcrumbed and fried in clarified butter. Cassoeula, by contrast, is scrap cooking: ribs, rind, small sausages and trotters stewed with savoy cabbage, and it is not made until after the first frost, which sweetens the leaves. Panettone closes the year.

The Valtellina runs east-west, so its slopes face south. Nebbiolo grows on terraces there, making Valtellina Superiore and Sforzato from air-dried grapes, while the same dry wind cures bresaola, the lean air-dried beef. The table food is pizzoccheri (buckwheat ribbons with cabbage, potato and Casera cheese), fried cheese fritters called sciatt, and Bitto, made only in high summer huts between June and September. Bergamo and Brescia add filled casoncelli, buckwheat polenta, spit-roast meats, and the metodo classico sparkling wines of Franciacorta.

The lowlands are a different Lombardy. Mantua, ruled by the Gonzaga, kept the Renaissance taste for sweet with savoury: pumpkin tortelli with crushed amaretti and mostarda, crumbly sbrisolona cake, pike in a caper sauce from the Mincio lakes. Cremona makes nougat and mostarda, candied fruit in a mustard syrup, served with boiled meats. Pavia and the Lomellina grow rice, Italy being Europe's largest producer, and cure goose salami at Mortara. On the lakes the fish are whitefish, shad and missoltini, sun-dried shad pressed in tins, the classic Lake Como starter.