The Food of the Estremo Ponente Ligure (Extremely Western Liguria)

The food of the extremely Western Liguria is made of simple and genuine ingredients, a bit of oil extravergine of taggiasca olives and aromatic herbs. The basil is in fact the basic ingredient of the green sauce (pesto), used to dress the first dishes, and also to flavour the soups (minestrone).

In the Hinterland you can taste ravioli with herbs or borage “borragine” with lot of varieties, the goat kidneys, rabbit “alla ligure” with taggiasca olives, ths stockfish brandacujùn. On the coast flapjacks of “gianchéti”, anchovis stuffed, prawns, octopusses with potatoes.

Everywhere the “pisciadéla or sardenaira” (pizza with tomatoes, anchovis and olives) the green cake of chards, courgettes or pumpkin, and more other varieties, the “farinata” (a dough of chickpea flour, cooked in oven), and the “panissa” , a sort of porridge of chickpea flour, cut in cubes, seasoned or fried, and the delicious stuffed vegetables.The traditional sweet pastries are “bugie” or “pansarole” and le “castagnole” and il “castagnaccio” (dough with chestnut flour), and the “cubaite” (sweet pastry of honey and hazelnuts, between two wafers). 

Valle Nervia and surrounds
La Castagnola di Ventimiglia
It is a particular cake, which the basic ingedient of it is the chocolate
I Barbajùai di Camporosso
Fried ravioli stuffed with mashed pumpkin, rice, chard and cheese “bruzzo”
La Michetta di Dolceacqua
  It is a sweet and morbid sugared cake, perfect together with a glass of Rossese
Le Cubaite di Isolabona

  Cake of honey and hazelnuts
Le pansarole di Apricale

Fried cakes in oil and flavoured with water of orange-flowers, to eat with eggnog
Gran pistàu di Pigna

It is a delicious christmas dish, which the basic ingredients of it are grain and “porri”
I fagioli bianchi di Pigna

These kidneys are delicious boiled, and seasoned with a bit of olive oil extravergine, but the symbolic dish is goat with kidneys
Il Carciofo di Perinaldo

 The delicious provencal spineless artichoke “violet”

The handmade sausage prepared with maestry following the traditions

The “canestrelli” and the fennel cookies
Badalucco
The stockfish “brandacujùn”: a dish based on dried cotfish, patatoes, and parsley

Little white delicious and delicate kidneys

Salty cake of potatoes

 The barley bread of the shephards, watered and seasoned with oil and tomatoes

 Snails molinasca flushed for a month in the bran, cooked with aromatic herbs, garlic and red winegar.

 The aromatic grappa also called milk of shellfish “Latte di Lumaca” 

The rotund wholemeal bread, which is accomanied well with the cheese “bruzzu”

 It’s a friable cake of a simple taste

 Fried shellfish and fried eel

Bread of San Rocco and  the “baxin” of a delicate wild fennel aroma
Aurigo

 The homemade bread and the “panzarelli”, pasta rolls leaven and fried and with various stuffings

 Aromatic slices of crispy toast-like bread

 Little white kidney, meaty and morbid and delicate

The “bruzzu”, the cheese fermented and sharp, the known “toma di Mendatica” and other little cheese
I Sugeli

Potatoe dumplings (“gnocchetti”), water and flour, flavoured with nuts sauce or “bruzzo”
Armo

“piattu freidu”: together with vegetables, hot sauce and “crostini” (cooked bread in cubes)
Le Raviore di Montegrosso

Pasta roll stuffed with wild herbs, seasoned with butter and sheep’s milk cheese
L’aglio di Vessalico
It is particularly digestiblee and delicate

Various kind of honey with different colors, aromas and properties
Streppa e caccia là of Mendatica

 Handmade pasta with water and flour and cooked with leaves of cabbage, turnip and potatoes