Pasta shapes from Friuli-Venezia Giulia

Friuli-Venezia Giulia sits at the meeting point of Italian, Alpine, and Central European cooking. Fresh pasta here leans on potato, bread, and buckwheat as much as on wheat. The cjarsons dough is soft wheat flour or potato. Blecs use buckwheat flour. Gnocchi of bread, potato, and pumpkin are the everyday first course. Tomato plays a small part, because the sauces predate its arrival.

Cjarsons are the signature shape, from Carnia in the mountains. They are half-moon or round parcels with a filling that mixes sweet and savoury. Ricotta, spinach, and herbs meet raisins, cocoa, cinnamon, and crushed biscuits. Each valley keeps its own version. Val Degano adds roasted onion and polenta. Val del But uses rye breadcrumbs and apple. Blecs are irregular buckwheat maltagliati. Ofelle from Trieste are potato ravioli with meat, sausage, and spinach. Gnocchi di susine wrap a whole plum.

Melted butter and smoked ricotta, scuete fumade, is the classic dressing for cjarsons and gnocchi. In summer an aged clarified butter called ont once took its place. Blecs and ofelle take butter and cheese. Mushroom sauces are common. Cjarsons hold PAT status. The region has no PDO or PGI pasta.