One hundred years ago on the 14th of July 1901, the municipal council of Isolato, as the Commune of Madesimo was then called, deliberated and unanimously agreed to grant honorary citizenship to the most famous Italian poet, Giosue Carducci, who had decided to spend his summer holidays in that high place. Between 1888 and 1905, two years before his death, he stayed at Villa Adele for a total of fifteen summers, dining in the Hotel Cascata, taking the waters in the hydrotherapeutic establishment of the Grand Hotel, playing cards, between one glass of good Valtellina wine and another, in the “stüa” of the Osteria végia and taking refreshing walks in the woods.
The honorary citizenship parchment was presented to the poet in the gardens of Villa Adele on the afternoon of Sunday, the 18th of August 1901, amidst speeches, music, fireworks and mountain flowers offered to him by the children. In the evening a great ball was organized in the crystal hall of the Grand Hotel.
To Madesimo and the valley Carducci, was dedicated “A una bottiglia di Valtellina del 1848” (To a bottle of 1848 Valtellina wine) (in “Odi barbare”), “Elegia del Monte Spluga” (Elegy of the Spluga Mountain) and “Sant’Abbondio” (in “Rime e ritmi”).
Brisaola Santa di Chiavenna (Holy Chiavenna Brisaola)
This is its name in Chiavenna, where this gastronomic speciality was born in the Middle Ages and where it is still produced by all the butchers and eaten “holy”, that is without the addition of oil and lemon. Carducci loved to eat it in Madesimo, but he also asked the Ciocca family of the hotel Cascata in Bologna for it, as for example on the 16th of December 1893, he said, “When you find other good seasoned but not old bresaola, please send it to me”.
Buckwheat ravioli with nettles
This is a first course whose ingredients were produced in our valleys at the time of Carducci. Buckwheat, widespread in Valchiavenna as well as in other alpine valleys, is used to make bread and pasta. To this you add tender wild nettles, which give the pasta all the natural fragrances and tastes of the past.
Chops with “segrisola”
Pork has always been a source of security and a guarantee for the families and local restaurants. It could not therefore be missing from a typical menu created to celebrate Carducci’s centenary. Here the chops are flavoured with small delicate leaves of wild thyme, called “segrisöla” in Valchiavenna, which grow spontaneously along the edges of the meadows.
Biscotìn of Prost (small biscuits from Prost)
The “biscotìn de Prost” reign supreme over the typical and exclusive sweets of Valchiavenna. The ingredients are simple: white flour, butter from the Alpine pastures and sugar but their recipe is secret, as is right for an exclusive speciality, since they are only produced at the Mill of Prosto di Piuro, in the shadow of the imposing seventeenth-century bell tower, even though– as happens with all good things – there is no lack of poor imitations.
Grappa of Iva or Iva herb tea
After centuries during which aqua-vitae used to be produced in the home, the people of Val San Giacomo, today known as Valle Spluga, became expert “grapàt” (grappa makers), spending their long winters working the marcs that they bought at a low price in the Chiavenna plain, then spreading out into the large wine-producing area of the North of Italy, where some dozens of their distilleries are still working. Among the Alpine medicinal herbs, the Alpine yarrow, here known as “erba Iva”, is the most commonly used, being an efficacious and refined mountain liqueur.
Wines of Valtellina
In 1888, Carducci arrived in Madesimo for the first time, on the occasion of his fiftieth birthday, and he was invited to the cellars to celebrate. Many bottles of Sassella were consumed, on whose labels the last two figures of the year had been inverted: so 1884 became 1848. Then they began to tell the story of how, on the 22nd of October of that year in Verceia, a group of volunteers from Chiavenna had made a stand against the attempt of the Austrian soldiers to return to the valley after the failure of the first War of Independence. Thus was born the poem “A una bottiglia di Valtellina del 1848” (To a bottle of 1848 Valtellina Wine of), which commemorates those heroic feats.
E tu nel tino bollivi torbido
prigione, quando d’italo spasimo
ottobre fremeva e Chiavenna,
oh Rezia forte!, schierò a Vercea
sessanta ancora di morte libera
petti assetati […]
On the subject of Valtellina wines, we must remember what Carducci wrote during his summer holidays in Valle Spluga: “ […] si va per il mondo di Madesimo mangiando polli e bevendo l’inferno” (we wander in Madesimo eating chicken and drinking Inferno). No other wine than Sassella or Inferno of Valtellina can better accompany a meal in memory of the poet, who with his fortnightly presence honoured Madesimo, “l’alpe d’incanto”, “il bel paese e il dilettoso fiume” (the enchanted pasture, the wonderful land and the beloved river).
