Törggellen time in South Tyrol – a feast of autumn

Let’s head to the South Tyrol, Italy in autumn, to try a traditional Tyrolean Törggellen feast. Törggellen is like a “harvest” celebration, but unlike other harvest and Thanksgiving celebrations, there is no one day for a Törggellen. Rather, restaurants offer these meals throughout the autumn months.

Bozen/Bolzano is a beautiful medieval town nestled at the foot of the Dolomite mountains, a town with a subtle blend of Italian style and Tyrolean tradition. It’s the ideal base to explore the surrounding natural wonders of the South Tyrol and taste Tyrolean food specialties, like those on offer during the Törggellen celebrations.

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First course in the Törggellen meal

A Törggellen meal begins with a typical Tyrolean first course of a starchy item. For example, you might start with Schlutzkrapfen/mezzelune, little squares of pasta that look like very thin ravioli.

The pasta is often filled with “something green” (a mix of spinach, onion and herbs, traditionally), pumpkin, or squash. This dish is topped with melted butter and Parmesan cheese.

Or you might choose instead some Knödel/canederli, which are big bread-based dumplings. These are made with bits of bread-for-stuffing (like you’d use to stuff a goose or turkey), which is then mixed with pieces of cheese, small chunks of Tyrolean cured bacon (Speck), and/or bits of spinach.

The bread mixture is then shaped into balls or ovals and boiled in water. Like the Schlutzkrapfen, Knödel are often served in a melted butter sauce and topped with Parmesan cheese (my favourite!), although another typical presentation is serving them in a soup.

The meat course in a Törggellen feast

After the first course, the Törggellen feast becomes all about the meat. Specifically all about pork. Many different pork products are presented on a Törggellen platter, including ham, roast pork, and many varieties of pork sausages.

Pork dishes in the South Tyrol are always accompanied with a bowl of tasty horseradish sauce. It’s not sour and adds just a bit of a kick when combined with a bit of roast pork, or a slice of salami.

The most unusual of all the pork offerings is the dark red Blutwurst sausage. The literal translation is “blood sausage”, which doesn’t sound that appetising. At a Törggellen the sausage is served whole and hot on the central pork platter, then you slice off a bit of it to transfer to your plate.

It’s not as solid as the other sausages and it sort of falls apart and spills out of the casing when you cut into it. The many spices, including cloves, gives the blood sausage a really distinctive taste. Very flavourful, but definitely an acquired taste!

Sauerkraut in a Törgellen meal

There are usually no vegetable side dishes offered at a Törgellen, apart from the piping hot sauerkraut, which has little pieces of pork mixed in, in keeping with the overall pork-theme of the meal.

During the Törgellen feast, the bowl of sauerkraut on the table is constantly replenished – an all-you-can eat offering at the meal.

Roasted chestnuts and wine

Of course, all of that food serves as merely a preamble to autumn-specific food that comes at the end of the meal. A huge pile of roasted chestnuts is accompanied by glasses of the “new wine” that has just been bottled.

Your fingers become quite sooty as you peel the still-warm blackened chestnuts, revealing the plump, cooked nut in side. It’s the perfect counterpoint to the slightly sweet and every-so-slightly fizzy new wine.

Although the chestnuts accompanied by new wine are available only in autumn, all of the other standard Törggellen specialties can all be found in restaurants year-round. So any time of year is perfect for a visit to sample the sumptuous flavors of the South Tyrol.

Read more about the food and wine of South Tyrol

Cycling with wine and apples – on the wine road in South Tyrol
Traditional South Tyrol food and wine with a gastronomic twist

To plan your visit to South Tyrol

For more information to plan your own visit, find accommodation and discover all the things to do in South Tyrol, visit the South Tyrol Tourism website

About our guest writer: Lee McIntyre is an American photographer, teacher and author who spent three years in Bozen/Bolzano, Italy. Lee chronicles some of her adventures in her lighthearted memoir, “Life on a Gelato Diet: Everyday Expeditions with an American in Bolzano”, available from Amazon worldwide.

Photos: copyright Lee McIntyre except first photo by Heather Cowper

This article is originally published at Heatheronhertravels.com

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