Cimbrian cuisine

A mainstay still today is the ever-present polenta (pulta in Cimbrian), the traditional poor man's dish and a symbol of the mountain people's ability to use the precious gifts of the earth.

Polenta was eaten with cheese and a side dish that varied with the seasons and depended on available resources, both cultivated or picked in the wild: in winter sauerkraut, in spring cumin from the meadows boiled in water and seasoned with butter, in summer lettuce or cabbage, in autumn celery and red cabbage.

The kitchen cupboard was always full of corn flour, and potatoes. Those were for the evening polenta, called the potato polenta (patatan pult). Butter was the most common condiment, and also served as the basis for barley soup, brobosà, a toasted-flour soup, and for the few cakes or desserts that were prepared on high days and holidays.

The dishes were full of fat to ward off the cold and hearty to help with the hard work in the mountains. As with all mountain peoples, the Cimbrians’ traditional recipe book is also the story of how the locals made intelligent use of their land and formed a society based on self-sufficiency.

Going up to Luserna, walking through its narrow streets, and observing the mountain peaks is only part of the experience. Before you even sit down to eat in one of the local restaurants, pay a visit to the Haus von Prukk, a house museum with the typical characteristics of a nineteenth-century Cimbrian farmhouse.

In the kitchen (haus) a cauldron hangs on the hearth. You can see Grandma making lace, Mum at the hearth, and Grandpa adjusting a tool... Here too is where the history of mountain cuisine was born.