Piemonte in the rain

4/3/18

We woke to a gloomy drizzly day that progressed to a gloomy rainy day but, undaunted, we set out to go to the west of Alba to some small villages and also to the town of Bra, famous for a sausage that (as we later found out) is unavailable anywhere else. We stopped in the village of Cornegliano then passed though some other uninteresting places on the way to Bra.
Gate to Cornegliano

Medieval tower on hill behind church

Cornegliano Church

We were struck by the difference in the landscape. Despite still being in a region famous for its red wines, the land was much flatter and with large fields of non grape growing agriculture. Bra is a fairly large town and after walking around a bit in the main piazza and surrounding streets, we found a spot for lunch. It was a small rustic restaurant/bar with book shelves lining one wall and on a table on the way to the restroom was a giant book entitled (in Italian) "A Day at El Bulli" and another was an Alain Ducasse cookbook. A bit surprising in these surroundings.
Main square in Bra

City hall Bra

Dick had the famous Bra sausage which is made of a locally grown veal called Fassone and it was really delicious. I had a this pasta called tajarin in the Piedmont dialect but in standard Italian it's tagliolini. It's a skinny, flat, long spaghetti that is made with tons of egg yolk and tasted wonderfully rich and tasty with a tomato based sauce with the Bra sausage.  (Forgot to take photos) We managed to polish off most of a bottle of wine with lunch then went to the grocery store to buy some of the sausage to bring back to the apartment. Unfortunately, we were told it is only sold in butcher shops, not grocery stores and all the butchers were closed until 3:30 or 4. We began to drive back towards Alba and, in the middle of NOWHERE, there was an Eataly! We had no idea there was one anywhere in the area so of course we had to stop. Maybe they would have Bra sausage? It turned out to be quite a small Eataly but with a nice selection of lots of things including some weird black chickpeas that Dick thought he needed to have and I found a particular olive oil made only in Liguria that I had neglected to buy while I was in Liguria and a few other odds and ends but NO Bra sausage. Ah well, Bra sausage will be just a memory as we found out back in Alba (only 9 miles away from Bra) that it is ONLY sold in Bra. We drove home by way of Barbaresco which is also quite close to Alba but by then it was truly raining and we just came home to be warm and dry.
Barbaresco vineyard with Tanaro River in background

Another vineyard in Barbaresco

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