The cuisine of Trentino is a mountain cuisine: simple, hearty and made with local ingredients. It was born in the pantries of farmers and shepherds, where a few good products were enough to fill the table. Today those dishes have become the best way to get to know this land. In this guide we tell you about the flavours to taste during your holiday: what the typical dishes are, what they are made of and where to enjoy them. We at Italy Holiday have been welcoming guests in Trentino for a long time, and these are the dishes we would recommend to a friend who is arriving.

1. La polenta

Polenta is the queen of Trentino cuisine. It is a thick cream made from corn flour cooked slowly in water. The most renowned version is made with the yellow flour of Storo, a village in the Giudicarie valleys about 70 kilometres from Trento, where a variety of corn with reddish kernels is milled. For generations polenta fed the mountain families, which is why today you find it on almost every table.

Every valley has its own version. Polenta carbonera is enriched at the end of cooking with cheese, salamella browned in butter and a grinding of pepper. Polenta macafana is made with spressa delle Giudicarie, a semi-hard cheese. You find it as a main dish or as a side to meats and cheeses, especially in the colder months.

2. I canederli

Canederli (in German knödel) are large dumplings made from stale bread. They began as a farmers' dish, a clever way to avoid wasting leftover bread: the dry bread is softened in milk and bound with eggs, onion, parsley and usually cubes of speck. The recipe changes from valley to valley and from family to family, but the base always stays the same. The tradition is ancient: the oldest record is a twelfth-century fresco at Castel Appiano, near Bolzano, showing a woman cooking them.

They are served in two ways: in hot broth, perfect for cold days, or dry with melted butter and sage. There are also versions with cheeses or vegetables. They are a symbol dish of the whole Alpine area, and you find them in almost every mountain hut and trattoria in Trentino.

3. Salumi e speck

Among the cured meats of Trentino, the best known is speck. It is a boned pork leg, lightly salted and flavoured, cold-smoked and then aged for a long time in the mountain air. The one from Alto Adige carries the IGP mark and calls for an average ageing of about 22 weeks. The light smoking, usually with beech wood, gives it its unmistakable aroma, with notes that recall dried fruit and nuts.

Speck is enjoyed thinly sliced, on its own or on a board together with other cured meats and cheeses. It is also excellent in canederli and in many warm dishes. Alongside it you find other smoked specialities of the area, such as aged little salamis scented with mountain herbs and juniper. It is one of the flavours that best tells the tradition of these valleys.

4. I formaggi di malga

In Trentino the cheeses are born in the malga, the high-altitude dairies where the milk of grazing animals is still worked by hand. The most representative is Puzzone di Moena DOP, a semi-hard cheese made with raw milk in the Fiemme, Fassa and Primiero valleys. Its name comes from its intense aroma, due to the rind being washed with water and salt during ageing. The taste is bold, savoury and with a slightly bitter aftertaste.

Alongside it there are Vezzena, one of the oldest mountain-pasture cheeses of Trentino, and Trentingrana, a mountain relative of grana, aged for a long time. They are enjoyed on their own, on a board, or melted into polenta. In summer many malghe open their doors to visitors and sell their cheeses on site: it is the most authentic way to taste them.

5. I vini e il Trentodoc

Trentino is also a land of mountain wines, fresh and fragrant thanks to the Alpine climate and the strong temperature swings. Among the reds the Teroldego Rotaliano stands out, considered the prince of Trentino wines: full, fruity and well bodied. There is also the Marzemino from Vallagarina, an elegant and easy-drinking red, even mentioned in Mozart's Don Giovanni.

The great sparkling wine of the area is Trentodoc, a metodo classico sparkling wine that ferments a second time in the bottle and matures on the lees for at least 15 months. It is made with Chardonnay and Pinot grapes, and it was the first Italian classic method to obtain the controlled designation of origin, in 1993. It is perfect as an aperitif or to accompany a board of cured meats and cheeses. Always drink in moderation.

6. Lo strudel e i dolci

The most loved sweet of Trentino is the strudel di mele, the apple strudel. It is a thin pastry rolled around a filling of apples, raisins, pine nuts and cinnamon. The recipe comes from the Tyrolean tradition and entered Trentino kitchens thanks to the apples grown in these valleys. It is enjoyed warm, perhaps with a dusting of icing sugar, and it is perfect at the end of a meal or as an afternoon snack.

The other symbol sweet is zelten, a cake rich in dried fruit typical of the Christmas period. Inside you find figs, walnuts, almonds, raisins and candied fruit, bound by a simple dough of flour, eggs, butter and sugar. Here too every family has its own version. The name comes from the German selten, meaning "rarely", because it was once prepared only for the most important occasions.

Dove assaggiare la cucina trentina

The most authentic place to taste these dishes is a mountain malga or rifugio. Here the polenta arrives steaming from the copper pot, the cheeses are made a few steps away and the strudel is homemade. It is an experience that joins taste and landscape: you eat seated among the pastures, with the peaks all around. If you want to find out where to go, read our guide to the malghe e rifugi del Trentino.

We at Italy Holiday welcome guests in the very areas where these flavours are born, in homes designed to make you feel at home from the first moment. Staying in our areas you have the markets, the trattorias and the malghe within easy reach, and you can taste Trentino cuisine day after day. Discover where to stay and pack your bags: the flavours of Trentino are waiting for you.

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