San Boldo: a town joins forces to buy it
La Muda - Restaurant
La Muda- Bar Area
The old muda – the mews – has been transformed into an inn (Balanza).
Its thousand-year history can now be re-experienced thanks to thirteen people’s love of their homeland.
They are united by three coats of arms on the outside walls of the old mews, poised between the provinces of Treviso and Belluno, and long ago a point of transit for men and goods. The road is the one that, up to the early 20th century, was the Canàl de san Bòit, a difficult path that linked the foothills of the Alps in the Treviso area with Valbelluna; the Austrian transformed it into a carriage-way in the winter of 1917, at the cost of 100 days of hard labour by Russian prisoners and the women of Tovena. At the summit of the San Boldo Pass, between Cison di Valmarino and Trichiana, was the Muda del Mille, where wayfarers could find food and lodging, and custom duties were paid on transported goods. And then there are the coats of arms: of Belluno, Venice and the Podesta Venier.
The three provinces were linked by the commerce that forced traders to pass through because of the customs house, and they have now joined forces to restore the ancient splendour of the medieval building marred by poor restoration work and the removal of traces of the past that has been a large part of the disintegration of the landscape of the Veneto region.
The old customs house, which was used as an inn, a hotel and then the “Osteria Da Teresa” until only recently, was put on the market.
From the outside, it was not very promising: an insignificant parallelepiped. Matchboard interiors, traces of the past that were entirely eliminated with one of the latest restoration works of the Seventies. But the local residents knew the inn well, and they wanted to go further: books, studies and research for documentation – the earliest goes back to 1200 – and prints. They were convinced of one thing: that the building pertained to the history of Passo San Boldo. Leaving it in the hands of perfect strangers – perhaps some big property company intent on transforming it into a new hotel or restaurant, would have been a crime. Consequently, the group of thirteen – people hailing from Venice, Belluno and Treviso – decided to set up a company to buy the old customs house. They included oenologists, physicians, local restaurateurs and ordinary people who love their land and their history.
“We were afraid that the new buyers would tear it down, so we bought it, with the idea of restoring it to its former state,” explained Barbara Schimdt, one of the partners. Pickaxes in hand, the partners began to dig into the inn’s past.
And they discovered medieval plaster, Romanesque walls, ancient stoups used by bishops on the long journeys between Belluno and Treviso, hearths from the 15th and 16th centuries, arches, medieval decorative elements and rupestrian graffiti.
The restoration work, entrusted to experts in the field, took care of the rest. Today the inn is ready, with the larin, where there is one of the fireplaces, and a bar area. It will be an osteria with zero-kilometre products – exclusively local – and a shop that will sell local specialities, from the beans of San Boldo to polenta sponcia.
And as the restoration or, rather, rescue work proceeds, the restaurant and the rooms in the old inn will be opened. The arches, which have already been located, will be reopened and the most recent layers of plaster removed to reveal the stone of the façades. And things will go back to the way they were long ago, with three mudare behind the counter pouring grappa and wine with dregs.
Osteria La Muda di San Boldo |
Hours Chef: Uwe Schroeder |
Sweet-and-sour boar for ten people
| boar | 22.3 kg (leg or shoulder) |
| prunes | 0,2 Kg |
| sultanas | 50 gr |
| rosemary, olive oil, salt, pepper, pine nuts | |
| red wine | ½ litre |
| red-wine vinegar | ½ litre |
| onion, carrot, celery | |
| thyme | ½ tsp |
| ground cloves | ½ tsp |
| ground pimento | ½ tsp |
| ground cinnamon | ½ tsp |
| bay leaves | 4 |
| caramelised onions | 2 etti |
Cut the boar into large pieces and marinate in a mixture of red wine, vinegar and a tablespoon of sugar. Set aside for 24 hours.
Remove the meat from the marinade and dry with paper towels. Add salt, pepper and a sprinkling of flour, and then sauté everything in olive oil. When the meat is browned, remove from the pot and add the vegetables, sautéing them and then adding the marinade. Put the meat back into the pot with the vegetables and the marinade, add the spices, and simmer for two hours.
Check the meat every so often, as it cooks differently, and remove the parts that are already done. In the meantime, caramelise the onions with the sugar and vinegar.
Add the meat to the pot again, stirring in the sultanas and chopped prunes, and cook for about one minute. Garnish the plate with caramelised onions and some pine nuts