Taragna polenta is the dish that best tells the story of winter in the Bergamo valleys: corn flour mixed with buckwheat, cooked long and slow, then creamed with a stringy mountain-pasture cheese. It’s a dish born to give energy after a day of work in the alpine pastures, and it remains one of the most recognisable symbols of Lombard mountain cooking.
In 2013, a panel of Bergamo experts defined an official recipe for authentic taragna polenta, to protect it from the many variants in circulation. This is the version we set out here. It’s part of our guide to traditional Bergamo recipes.
Ingredients for 6 people
- 2 litres of water
- 10 g coarse salt
- 350-400 g vitreous or semi-vitreous corn flour (with a percentage of buckwheat as allowed by the official recipe)
- at least 300 g of cheese, chosen among Formai de Mut Brembana Valley PDO cheese, Bitto PDO cheese, or Branzi cheese
- 50 g butter
- 1 clove of garlic
- 4 sage leaves
The butter sautéed with garlic and sage is added only if the taragna polenta is served as a main course on its own.
Method
- Bring the water to the boil in a copper pot, a cast-iron pot, or a heavy-bottomed steel pot with rounded corners to make stirring easier.
- Salt the water with the coarse salt.
- Pour in the flour in a steady stream, stirring vigorously and continuously to avoid lumps.
- Cook for at least 60 minutes, continuing to stir at regular intervals. If the polenta gets too thick, add hot water a little at a time.
- Cut the cheese into small pieces — Branzi cheese or Formai de Mut cheese — and keep it ready.
- Lower the heat to minimum and add the cheese to the polenta, mixing well until it melts completely.
- If serving as a main course, prepare a separate sauté of butter, garlic and sage, remove the garlic and sage once the butter is flavoured, and pour it hot over the polenta.
- Serve in ceramic or terracotta bowls, or laid out on a wooden board according to tradition.
Why the cheese makes all the difference
Cheese isn’t an accessory topping in taragna polenta: it’s the ingredient that defines its identity and origin. Formai de Mut cheese, Bitto cheese and Branzi cheese are mountain-pasture cheeses, produced at high altitude with milk from cows grazing in summer, and they give the polenta a stretch and a flavour that a generic cheese simply can’t replicate. That’s why the official recipe specifies its origin so precisely.
Bergamo or Valtellina: the differences
Taragna polenta is common both in the Bergamo area and in Valtellina, with differences mainly in the choice of cheese and the ratio between corn and buckwheat flour. The Bergamo version favours cheeses from Brembana Valley— Formai de Mut cheese and Branzi cheese above all — while the Valtellina version relies more often on Bitto cheese from the Orobie valleys of Valtellina. They are variants of the same dish, not different recipes.
Frequently asked questions about taragna polenta
What’s the difference between taragna polenta and concia polenta?
They are similar but not identical dishes: taragna polenta uses a mix of corn and buckwheat flour, while concia polenta traditionally uses only corn flour, enriched with even larger amounts of cheese and butter.
Which buckwheat should be used for the official recipe?
The official recipe defined by the panel of experts allows a percentage of buckwheat in the flour, without specifying a mandatory variety: what matters is the quality of the base corn flour, preferably from old varieties grown in the Bergamo area.
Can taragna polenta be made with other cheeses?
The official recipe specifies Formai de Mut cheese, Bitto cheese or Branzi cheese as the reference cheeses. Substituting them with a generic cheese is possible, but the result moves away from the authentic recipe, both in flavour and in stretch.
Come and taste real taragna polenta
At Bigio, taragna polenta is one of our restaurant’s historic dishes, prepared with cheeses from Brembana Valley following the traditional recipe.
Get in touch and come try it — we’ll be waiting for you at the table.
