The Legend of a Cycling Champion and a Famous Bandit

The story

Legendary recipes – Novi Ligure (AL)

In the last years of the nineteenth century a boy, the son of poor farmers, raced along the country roads around Novi Ligure on his bicycle. Together with several of his friends he often held speed races, always won, without fail, by him: Costante Girardengo. Now and then Sante Pollastri also came to race along the winding roads set in the Monferrato landscape, a lively boy who dreamed of becoming a champion, just like Costante. A few years passed, and Girardengo, born in 1893 and turned professional in 1912, began to win increasingly important titles, including in 1913 a stage of the Giro d'Italia, followed the next year by victory in the longest stage ever raced in the Giro, the Lucca-Roma, at 430 km. The great rider's career had taken off, bringing him to win the Giro d'Italia twice, Milan-Sanremo six times and the Giro di Lombardia three times.

Meanwhile his childhood racing companion Sante had taken a path full of trouble, becoming a dangerous bandit whose life was strewn with escapes and a series of criminal acts, and wrapped in a still mysterious cloud of urban legends. The two young men from Novi, with such similar childhoods and such different careers, met again in Paris in 1926. Sante, a great admirer of Girardengo, was a fugitive, and Costante was in the French capital for a Six Days race. Pollastri was arrested in 1927 by the men of Commissioner Guillaume, the figure who inspired Georges Simenon's Commissioner Maigret. Francesco De Gregori dedicated a famous song to the legend of the bandit and the champion, but the story is also told in a book by Marco Ventura, as well as in a 2010 RAI television drama inspired by the book, starring Beppe Fiorello and Simone Gandolfo.

In Novi Ligure, a town famous for chocolate and for its painted palaces, you'll find the Museo dei Campionissimi, the largest cycling museum in Europe, which across a full three thousand square metres pays tribute to the history of cycling, also with a series of relics and testimonies linked to Costante Girardengo and Fausto Coppi, who came from nearby Castellania.

THE RECIPE

(provided by Ristorante Bunet in Novi Ligure)

Corzetti al tocco

Ingredients: (quantities based on the number of people)

Corzetti

Onion Garlic Extra virgin olive oil Herbs (sage, rosemary) Sausage Dried mushrooms Red wine Broth Salt, pepper

Corzetti are a pasta typical of the area, and to save time we can also pick them up at the delicatessens of Novi during our visit. Here's how to dress them:

Let's make a sauté of onion and garlic, mixed with the herbs (sage and rosemary). We brown the sausage, then add the dried mushrooms. We deglaze everything with red wine, and let it cook slowly in the broth. When the sauce reaches a certain thickness, we add salt and pepper to taste and toss the corzetti with the sauce prepared this way.

At Ristorante Bunet you can taste numerous specialities of the flavoursome Monferrato cuisine, rich in Ligurian influences, including a dish full of history: the velvety risotto, loved by the aristocrats of the past. Its recipe was handed down by an elderly cook who had worked in the castles and palaces of barons and marquises. It's a rice creamed with Parmesan, served with a sauce made from a reduced brown stock, which takes a full five days of cooking to prepare.