Our "Festa del Bitto"

This weekend has seen the annual "Festa del Bitto" in the Valtellina.....
What is Bitto? Well it's perhaps the most famous Valtellinese cheese of all and you can see it here on a stall in the town of Delebio (next to my village....), though the really BIG 'festa' is held in Morbegno 6 miles further on.
Here in the first photo you can see one of the 'local' small producers - these are often local families who do not produce enough to have large commercial premises and so they usually sell their wares in the local markets or 'door to door'. The best Bitto is usually labelled Fior d'Alpe as you can see...(Alpine flowers) indicating the Alpine pastures where their cows spend the summer and often where the cheese is actually made. (All done under very strict government health controls I might add!).

While the stall above only sells Bitto, this second one, while still selling 'local' produce, has his own shop and he sells a variety of things throughout the year. One of his other specialities are local 'fresh' and 'dried' wild mushrooms.
He also sells a variety of local goat products, including 'Violini di Capra' which are dried baby goat legs - a bit like bresaula and not only very tasty, but very expensive too. They have various local salami's, bresaula, and goats cheeses (captini and Tomi!!!)

I had tried to post a third photo here, but it just didn't appear - so I'll add another to show our 'local honey and cure all' man....

posted by Carole B @ 11:29 AM