We may live in a world where frontiers are becoming more and more shaky (or not?) but in Italian gastronomy there are boundaries, in spades. Overseas countries with walls much higher than the Alps. Similarly though, within the same country, confused by policies from the past. Take for example, the area of Novara and Vercelli. Two cities that you expect to be gastronomically similar and even opposed to everything beyond Ticino which was once the border between Austrian Lombardy and Savoy Piedmont. But no. The two cities are bitter rivals and paniscia, the typical dish from Novara, has always been contradicted the panissa vercellese. Why? Well because the "old" frontier between the two territories, the tight states of Piedmont and Lombardy, industrious and a bit anarchist, before 1734 had always been further west, between Novara and Vercelli. Leaving Novara to Lombardy. Still today the people of Novara are classed as Lombards for the Piemontese and the Piemontese for the Lombards. A hybrid, precisely. With what consequences in the kitchen?
Sausage in lard
Paniscia novarese is a rice dish, usually a super fine one with large grains, such as Razza 77 or, alternatively Arborio. With borlotti beans, vegetables (savoy cabbage, celery, carrot, onion, and tomatoes) and pork rinds (sometimes with bovine tails and other meat for broth) a tasty broth is prepared, the outcome of a very lengthy cooking. At this point, in a frying pan, an onion is sautéed in lard and two other typical local ingredients: salam d'la duja (or doja), the soft salami matured in a jar of lard and, often found but not in all recipes, the Piedmontese liver mortadella, typical of Valsesia and the Lake Orta area. At this point the rice is added with a glass of barbera, and then the broth, stirring in at the end a little butter.
When there was no rice
Not exactly a victorious light dish, but it was what it took to tastefully fill the bellies of the farmers on feast days. The origins of this dish are very ancient, and certainly consumed even before the arrival of rice in the Po Valley, introduced into the Milanese community (and therefore also in Novara) by the Sforza family at the end of the 15th century. In place of rice previously used were other cereals such as barley, rye, millet, oats and panicum were used. According to chef Daniele Preda, from Ghemme, the name probably derives from the fact that the farmers, when they first saw the grains of rice (also used as payment method), tried to peel them initially but without great results. The grains, broken and crushed, resembled the "paniciu", an ancient cereal similar to millet consumed in the Middle Ages. Thus was born paniscia and panissa.
Three centuries old menu
Distinctively, the panissa vercellese is much simpler. The very rich meat and vegetable broth disappears in favor of a simple meat broth with celery and carrot; the liver mortadella (mainly linked to the mountain variety) disappears and sometimes, even the salam d'la duja, is replaced by salamis or sausages. But most of all, instead of the borlotti beans, the large tender, and precious Saluggia beans are used. The origin of this agreement is also very ancient. The first historical documentation was reported by Giacomo Grasso in his Storia della cucina vercellese, when the dish was contained in a wedding menu dated 1738. In which, in the panissa, both the "fasöi grosc" (but at that time they were probably those of Villata) and the "salam vecc", that is the salam d'la duja, appear immediately in the original panissa, which consequently represents an essential element of the recipe. There are numerous versions of panissa, as well as paniscia: traditionally, in the valley flatlands pork rinds are commonly used, whilst in other areas the recipe wine prevails and cold cuts are eliminated altogether.
In Valsesia and beyond
As Novaresi and Vercellesi argue for centuries about whether paniscia or panissa is better, the surrounding areas join the battle. In Valsesia for example, there is the paniccia, a carnival dish that was once prepared by cooking rice in milk. Today the panissa is, in essence, a kind of minestrone with vegetables and beef broth, made with rice or pasta. The paniccia from Lake Orta is instead made with rice and beans. The name also reappears in other very different recipes, outside Piedmont. As in the case of the Ligurian panissa, a sort of focaccia with chickpea flour similar to the farinata, and the paniscia of Val Badia, in Alto Adige, a sort of barley soup.