In southern Italy, rice has long been farmed. In northern Italy, where the marshes of the Po river basin were appropriate for rice cultivation, rice slowly migrated north from the south. A young glassblower apprentice from Flanders who worked at the Fabbrica del Duomo di Milano and used saffron as a pigment is said to have put it to a rice dish during a bridal feast. It is thought that risotto first appeared in Lombardy. The earliest known risotto recipe was created in 1809. There is butter-sautéed rice, bone marrow, onions, and broth with saffron added gradually. The 1854 “Treatise on Cooking” by Giovanni Vialardi, the assistant chief chef to kings, has a recipe for a meal called a risotto. But to this day, it is unknown who actually created the risotto in Milan.
Starting with Maratelli in 1914, the 20th century saw the development of the rice varietals currently associated with risotto.
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