Food
Brianza cuisine has many common traits with that of Milan, even though overall it is declined with less rich raw materials and is less open to external influences. The most characteristic dishes and products respond to the need to optimize the yield of raw materials and to dedicate not excessive time to food (intended as preparation and as consumption).
Hence the most characteristic dishes are dips, made with cheap ingredients (for example cuts of meat of lesser value) and, above all, the results of a quick preparation (which does not mean ready in a short time: the preparation often requires a long cooking, which takes place on the stove lit to heat the house).
The sauce retains all the nutritional properties and all the flavour. These are dishes with a very strong taste, such as the “Cassoeula” (the name, strictly in dialect, does not have a convincing counterpart in Italian). It is a particular stew of pork (ribs and verzini, but also rind and, according to customizations, also snout and feet) and cabbage. It is a typically winter dish, according to the seasonal nature of the cabbage, which is better harvested after night frosts.
Cassoeula takes many hours of cooking: it can be put on the fire and left there, while you take care of other chores. The preparation does not fear excessive cooking or the need to heat leftover portions: indeed anything can improve the taste. Cassoela is traditionally accompanied by corn-meal polenta, in a single dish that is consumed faster than what happens with multiple courses.
Similar considerations can be formulated for tripe (“Buseca”), a common dish to all Lombard cuisine and beyond. It is a stew of meat made from the stomachs of cattle, a stew flavored with beans, tomato sauce, carrots and celery. Tripe is a “holiday” dish: many families still preserve the tradition of eating it as a Christmas Eve dish and it is present in the most popular festivals.
Another “holiday” dish is risotto with saffron, often proposed together with “luganega”, which is the most characteristic sausage of the Brianza area.
Even the most typical Brianza dessert, the “Torta Paesana”, is an example of cuisine that pays attention to the use of raw materials.
The dessert, in fact, was created to recycle stale bread, which is the main ingredient even in today’s most popular creations. Originally, the preparation involved macerating the dry bread with milk, sugar and eggs. At a later time, the addition of chocolate which has become an essential characteristic element of every recipe, which has many variations (in particular by providing fillings with raisins, candied fruit or pine nuts).
Another simple and very typical dessert is the so-called “Pan Tramvai”, a simple bread mixed with raisins that gives it a very pleasant flavour.
Points of Interest
The characteristic historic center of the city of Seregno is dominated by an imposing bell tower dating back to the eleventh or twelfth century. The historical has determined the traditional name of Torre del Barbarossa, although there is no direct correlation (except chronological correspondence) between the village and the emperor Federico. Currently owned by the Municipality of Seregno and used as a bell tower for the Basilica of San Giuseppe, it was originally probably a signalling tower, a node of a more articulated system of which there are other similar structures in Brianza.
Under the tower, Piazza Vittorio Veneto, a characteristic lounge with the Monument to the Fallen of all wars in the center, a work of the Brianza sculptor Alfredo Sassi. Piazza Vittorio Veneto is one of the eight squares that characterize the historic city center, today clearly identified by the permanent pedestrian area. Distinctive elements of the squares are the Town Hall and the characteristic Mangia Bagaj fountain (Piazza Martiri della Libertà), the Basilica San Giuseppe (Piazza Concordia, a fine neoclassical building embellished by the altar by the sculptor Floriano Bodini) and the statue of King Umberto I (Piazza Italia). In Piazza Risorgimento, an installation by the contemporary artist Luca Pannoli and a mural dedicated to Dante by the street artist Neve are among the most “instagrammed” corners of the city. Not far away, in via Martino Bassi, was recently placed another work of street art: the “Jazz Club” designed by Capo.Bianco. The two murals are part of a more articulated “Arte Around” program, with the intention of bringing art into the spaces of everyday life. In this sense, not far from the historic centre, the recent mural that Livio La Rosa dedicated to Nikola Tesla and the one that Cristian Sonda designed in the railway underpass between via Solferino and via Magenta, inspired by Gianni Rodari’s “La Freccia Azzurra”.
And, above all, “I musici”, a tribute by Ravo Mattoni to the art of Caravaggio, but also to the musical tradition of the city of Seregno, whose greatest exponent was maestro Ettore Pozzoli, author of the best known and most practiced teaching method for piano learning. Ravo Mattoni’s work stands a few meters from the ancient oratory of Santi Rocco and Sebastiano, whose construction dates back to the seventeenth century and is linked to a vow made by the population of the village at the time of the plague. Inside the church, valuable frescoes by the artist Gabrio Bossi are visible.
The Oratory of Santi Rocco and Sebastiano is one of the fourteen public churches (including six parish churches) which have made an important contribution to the identity of the city. Among these stands the Marian Sanctuary of Santa Valeria, a twentieth century building where an ancient image of the Madonna with Child is venerated, a Madonna on whose head the people of Seregno placed a crown for having safeguarded the city during the bombings of the Second World War.
