FOOD
In terms of food and wine, Todi cuisine embraces perfectly Umbrian tradition: simple and natural ingredients, blended skilfully and coming from a rural society, yet unaffected by the nearby Regions over time.
Soil products such as cereals, beans and vegetables alternate with meat and wild mushrooms, asparagus and truffles coming from the surrounding woods, whereas fish is basically absent since Todi is far away from the sea.
Among the most popular and fragrant recipes we can mention Palomba alla Ghiotta and Pasta Dolce dei morti (Sweet Macaroni), typical pasta made during All Saints’ feast days.
OIL AND WINE
As everywhere in Umbria, Todi produces top quality oil and wine.
Todi “green gold”, PDO labelled, comes from the Colli Martani production sub-area, a central zone of 15 Municipalities. Among them, Massa Martana, Giano dell’Umbria and Montefalco.
As for wine production, instead, Todi belongs to the “Strada dei vini del Cantico” (Cantico Wine Road), one of the food and wine tours called “Strade del vino” (Wine Roads) aimed at making excellent local products well known. Grechetto di Todi is among the wines of the tour (1 DOCS – controlled and guaranteed designation of origin and five DOC – controlled designation of origin). It may be a variety of Asian origins where a “Greek style” wine used to be produced and was named after.
Though growing in other Umbrian areas, the Grechetto vine seems to find here its highest expression, as witnessed by ancient authors such as Pliny the Elder who would praise Todi grapes in the 1st century A.D., and Sante Lancerio, Pope Paul III’s cellarman who selected Grechetto for the Vatican canteen in 1500.