Our region offers an extraordinary variety of typical products. Marche's food and wine culture is the result of a peasant tradition made up of simple ingredients and a typical opulence of the nobles and clergy's banquets, who in these places have made the history and uses. Spending a holiday in our Country House in Senigallia will allow you to discover a heterogeneous territory that alternates sea and hill and the whole agro-food specialities that it offers.
Marche is an area that favours the production of agricultural high-quality grain and this is why pasta and bread are the basic elements of our culinary culture. Whether it is made of bran or eggs, pasta is a hand craft product. Quality raw materials, bronze-drawing and long drying periods. During days offs tagliatelle, tagliolini, pappardelle and maltagliati, dry or in broth passatelli, cappelletti will never miss on our tables. The most well-known pasta types are the "Maccheroncini of Campo Filone" and "Vincisgrassi". Campofilone is a small town known for this type of pasta which tradition dates back to 1400. Spaghetti are so thin that they melt in the mouth and can be cooked both dry or in broth. Finally, Vincisgrassi is a dish based on 7 layers of hand-rolled dough pasta wetted with béchamel and bolognaise sauce.
The most widely used bread is the homemade loaf made with supple wheat milled on millstone and blended with water, yeast and salt. Another appreciated type of bread is puff pastry "crescia"- an excellent charcuterie accompaniment - and pizza with "grasselli", the fat sautéed pork. In the countryside, this kind of pizza is served as a dessert accompanied with a glass of wine. During Easter time, it is common to eat Easter bread, a yeast-raised baked bread with cheese and pepper. Tasty and with yellow crumbs. The most well-known bread in Marche is the "Chiaserna" one, produced with source water, light and crunchy, baked in wood-oven without adding salt, additives or preservatives.
Beans, chickpeas and lentils are part of the tradition of Marche rural cuisine. One of the most popular crops is "cicerchia" which for centuries has represented the main source of sustenance for peasant families. It is consumed in a vegetable soup. Another typical legume of the area produced in Fratte Rosa, is the broad bean. A product that was being forgotten. Lately it has reappeared in local gastronomy and served in "ngreccia" way, meaning dried in the bake, as a side dish for meats.
The confectionery tradition of the area has marked rural origins. Desserts have been handed down from the ancient peasant and are made with simple ingredients. Among the most popular desserts, we recommend to try the "calcioni"- bread based ravioli filled with pecorino cheese, eggs, sugar and lemon zest; must ring-shaped cake, with anise seeds and squeezed grape must; figs "lonzino"; "cavallucci", whose recipe dates back to medieval times, wetted with a must liqueur; the almond pastry; "cicerchiata".
Every respectable lunch begins with two meat-based appetizers: offal lamb with eggs and Ascolane olives (fried green olives filled with meat). However, the most representative local gourmet is "porchetta" and especially the rabbit cooked in porchetta style, both flavoured with wild fennel.
The shape of the territory allows you to move from mountains to sea in less than an hour. In other words our gastronomy involves also seafood specialities thanks to the ports of Fano, Ancona and San Benedetto del Tronto supplying fresh fish on a daily basis. Among the typical fish-based delicacies, the cod cooked "all'anconetana" and "brodetto di pesce" (fish broth), originally the dish of the poorest fishermen.
According to ancient resources, Marche's cheeses were already well-known at the Augustinian age and the tradition tells that in the 16th century Michelangelo was impressed by the Casciotta of Urbino. Marche's milk, after all, has always been a guarantee for its exceptional quality. The technique with which cheese is produced has remained the same as the traditional peasant one that has made our pecorino and the whole selection of cheeses very popular. Must taste: PAT fig milk caprino cheese (with goat milk), full-fat cheese. As the tradition has taught us, milk is curdled with fig latex. Today the processing of Caprino cheese is still carried out with ancient wooden instruments.
Casecc PAT
Full-fat half-hard cheese, produced with cow and sheep milks during lactation. It is also used in the filling of "cappelletti".
Italian sheep's milk cheese in barrels PAT
Full-fat mid-long maturing hard cheese. The classic Italian sheep's milk cheese of Marche region rolled up in leaves and left in wine barrels. A cheese with a very intense aroma.
Raviggiolo of Marche PAT
Full-fat fresh soft cheese. This cheese is entirely produced with sheep's milk and has a delicate taste.
Marche's tradition of cured meats has longstanding origins. The tradition of pig slaughtering is still employed and known as "pista" (track). The connection with peasant culture is still strong. Even nowadays, talking about the pig, we say nothing must be thrown away. Key ingredients are garlic and fennel flavours that characterize the processing. The most typical salami of Marche is the "Ciauscolo IGP", a longstanding, soft and spreadable one. The other jewels among the cured meat are the salami of Fabriano (a delicacy of finely minced shoulder meat and pig thigh); salami of Ascoli; Carpegna DOP ham (the highest quality ham with at least 14 months of processing). "Ciarimbolo" also belongs to the top gastronomy, made with cooked and dried boiled pork innards, the liver sausage, shoulder ham and loin made with boneless pork neck.