Paste di Meliga

In Piedmont, corn is called meliga in dialect, and these are the cookies that farm wives made when wheat flour was precious and corn was plentiful. They are sandy, golden, and they shatter when you bite them. The cornmeal gives them a gentle grain and a warmth that wheat cookies cannot match.

The recipe requires restraint. Two egg yolks, not whole eggs. A whisper of lemon zest, not enough to announce itself. Butter of the finest quality, because you will taste every shortcut. What you keep out is as significant as what you put in. These cookies prove it.

Piedmontese families serve them with Moscato d'Asti, the gently sweet, barely fizzy wine of the Langhe hills. The pairing is not accidental. The cookies are not too sweet, the wine is not too strong, and together they find a balance that centuries of tradition have refined. You may also dunk them in espresso at breakfast, as the old farmers did. The cornmeal softens just enough to absorb the coffee without falling apart.