On the Alpe Cimbra the words "locally sourced" have one advantage: you can check them. The mountain dairies are directly above your head, you pass them on the way up, and the cheese on your plate at breakfast was milk a few bends away. That is not romance. That is geography.
If you are here for a few days, this is what is worth looking for, whether at the bistro, in a dairy or at the market.
Mountain dairy cheese
The main event. In summer the malghe on the plateau work the milk of animals grazing right above, and you can taste the difference: the higher the pasture, the more the cheese tastes of grass and flowers. They range from fresh and almost sweet to aged and sharp. A board with all of them at once is the best way to understand what we are talking about.
Tosela
If you have never heard of it, you are in good company. It is a fresh Trentino cheese eaten fried in a pan: a crust outside, soft inside, served with polenta. You will not find it everywhere in Italy, which is exactly the sort of thing that makes being here worthwhile rather than being somewhere else.
Mountain potatoes
Grown at altitude, low in water and high in flavour. They end up in dumplings, in tortel, or simply in a pan with cheese. It sounds unremarkable until you try them.
Cimbrian cooking
Next door, in Luserna, people still speak Cimbrian, an old Germanic language that survived on these plateaus. The cooking noticed: border food, part Trentino and part central European, where polenta sits next to speck and the puddings taste of butter and cinnamon. It is one of the things that makes the Alpe Cimbra unlike the rest of Trentino.
Strudel, and the rest
Trentino takes apples seriously, and they end up where they should. Strudel here is not the tourist pudding: it is what people make at home. Good after dinner, better mid-afternoon with something hot, after a walk.
Eating here. The Bazzario bistro cooks what this place actually grows: mountain dairies on the Alpe Cimbra, kitchen gardens nearby, very little road between the field and the plate. You eat looking at the lake, which helps.
When to look for them
Dairy cheeses are a summer thing: the malghe work while the animals are up high, then they come down. Autumn changes the register entirely, with mushrooms, apples and squash — that is in autumn flavours in Trentino. To reach the dairies by bike, the loops are in the Alpe Cimbra by e-bike.
Frequently asked questions
What is typical food on the Alpe Cimbra?
Mountain dairy cheeses made at altitude in summer, tosela (a fresh cheese fried in a pan and served with polenta), mountain potatoes, dumplings, and the dishes of Cimbrian cooking, which sits between Trentino and the Germanic world. For pudding, apple strudel.
What is tosela?
Tosela is a fresh Trentino cheese cooked in a pan: it forms a crust outside and stays soft inside. It is traditionally served with polenta.
When can you find mountain dairy cheese on the Alpe Cimbra?
In summer, while the animals are grazing at altitude and the malghe are working the milk. In autumn production stops and the season changes to mushrooms, apples and warmer dishes.
What is Cimbrian cooking?
It is the food of the plateaus where Cimbrian, an old Germanic language, is still spoken in Luserna next to Lavarone. It combines Trentino ingredients with central European traditions: polenta, speck, and puddings of butter and cinnamon.
