The Great Italian Food Adventure

FGF & WBW in Emilia-Romagna

Zampone

Bologna, 19th-28th May

Remember my theory about trying pretty much any food on the basis that, "hey, we're in Italy, it's bound to be tasty!"? WRONG. We were aware beforehand that zampone are an acquired taste, and the fact that Fred doesn't mention them, despite his having lived/studied in Bologna, is possibly a giveaway. Ditto not seeing them in any restaurants. Anyway, hindsight's 20-20. We bought our zampone in the market, in a shrink wrap plastic pack. They're pigs' trotters, stuffed with a meat mix, and sliced horizontally, so you get a circle of trotter holding together the chopped meat selection. You boil them in the bag, then slice the bag open to drain the excess liquid, and recoil, gagging and making all sorts of amusing noises, from the smell. Despite this, you both decide to be brave enough to serve them onto a plate and pretend you're going to eat them. They don't taste too bad, slightly odd texture due to the trotter (which softens to edible), they just absolutely reek, like a couple of days old open tin of cheap dog food. Took a couple of mouthfuls, then quit this whole dumb 'brave' thing and instead went foraging for nice safe sausage pizza.

Amo Zucca

Modena, ??th May

I love pumpkin! I'd never really eaten much pumpkin before I first moved to Melbourne - it's not an overly common food in the UK, apart from around Hallowe'en of course, when suddenly they're everywhere. So, I got introduced to the idea of roast pumpkin as a standard accompaniment to roast meats, fresh pumpkin soup, and even pumpkin scones in Australia, and realised I love the stuff. So, when faced with a limited menu at a small cafe/bar type place in Modena, which included pumpkin tortellini, my lunch choice was a no-brainer.

Sam apparently really enjoyed his ragu, which in Italy is more like a drier version of what I'd've called bolognese. But this entry's all about the pumpkin, or zucca. It was utterly beautiful, and I'm definitely going to find myself a recipe to try out once we get home. The pumpkin filling was cooked, pureed, and lightly flavoured with something like nutmeg. The consistency was fabulous - not at all watery, and thick enough to coat the roof of your mouth, but only in a good way, and the sauce was beautiful too - cream sauce, again with just the right texture, and I think also with a hint of nutmeg. So incredibly more-ish, and, in this case, ridiculously cheap for the taste.

Ambrosial Liquid, aka Aceto Balsamico di Modena

Modena, 25th May

On our first trip to Modena, we dropped into the tourist office to see if it would be possible to visit an acetaia, or balsamic vinegar producer, to see how the 'real stuff' is made. I had been looking forwards to this for a ridiculous amount of time, having read all about the tradition some time prior to coming out here. Fortunately, yes, it is entirely possible to visit the producers, and a time was booked for us.

We had a stupidly stressful time getting to the address we were given - we missed our train due to platform 1 at Bologna train station being hidden god knows where. When we finally found a train, it sat at the station for what seemed like forever and left late. Rather than try and figure out buses at Modena we grabbed a taxi and hared out towards our destination. We arrived five minutes late, flustered and apologising. Except the tourist office had told us the wrong time, so we were in fact half an hour early. Ne'er mind. The acetaia owners gave us water, told us to chill out because we were waiting for another four people to join the tour, and introduced us to their six tortoises.

And all the stress was definitely worth it. True balsamic vinegar is not made in factories, or even in any kind of large scale. The producers we visited had their barrels in the top couple of floors of their house, which are of course totally saturated with the mouth-watering scent. The other people didn't turn up, so we ended up having a private tour. The wife of the couple speaks good English, and explained the technique for making the vinegar whilst taking us around the very spacious attic/top floor of the house: they cook grape must to just the right acidity etc, then put it into a 'mother' barrel, where it stays for a year. Then there are a whole load of series of barrels, made of different woods such as cherry and oak, and arranged into sized sets from large to small. At a certain point each year, the smallest barrel is checked to see how much it has evaporated / has two litres of vinegar taken out for bottling, and is topped up from the barrel next to it. That barrel is topped up from the next largest one next to it, and so on, right up to the largest barrel of the series, which is topped up from the mother barrel.

It's apparently basically impossible to join the consortium of producers now - this couple are part of it because his grandmother was producing when the consortium was set up. Their first mother barrel is actually named after his grandmother. In fact, it's very much a family thing - she proudly showed us one series of seven barrels that they bought when they had their daughter. They're using it to make 'extra aged', which is 20yrs+ as opposed to the 'normal' 12yr old, and it will be her birthday present when she turns 21 or 25 - I forget which. Have to admit I really liked that aspect of it.

We were encouraged to look in the barrels, smell the different barrels to compare the tartness of the vinegars in each, she showed us a piece of the sediment that's produced, and then we got to the bit we'd been waiting for, the tasting...

Once comfortably seated, we were given little plastic spoons, and 'poured', which I put in quotes because aceto balsamico doesn't so much pour as tantalisingly ooze, a taste of 'normal' 12yr balsamic. And oh my god, it is utterly gorgeous!!! She told us to hold it in our mouths for a few seconds before swallowing to really get the full taste - there's still a bit of a vinegar kick, but also an incredibly rich, sensationally tasty flavour too. Sam finished his taste and then turned to watch me, apparently waiting for the happy bouncing to start (which was a hard one to explain to her...). She then gave us an even slower pour - the extra vecchia, or extra aged, which is typically 20-25yrs old. No vinegar kick whatsoever, just a divine sticky sweet mouthful of, as Fred calls it, ambrosial liquid, which I think I could happily drink straight up. If it didn't cost so much that is - it's more expensive per ml than Grange...

We were also treated to their juniper and cherry extra aged - most of the barrel series are comprised of different woods, but they have a couple of series of single woods. These were also very tasty, and there was definitely a taste difference between the two. They weren't quite tasty enough for us to justify their prices tags though.

We did of course treat ourselves to some, and have been steadily trying our oh-so-precious 12yr old on all sorts of foods, including dripped onto parmigiano and also onto strawberries. Really good juicy strawberries with just a drop or two, and maybe a quick dunk into some good mascarpone (my favourite being the Grifo Latte mascarpone we had in Perugia) - heaven!

Gallo d'Oro Times Two

Parma, 25th & 27th May

This restaurant was a Lonely Planet pick, which intrigued us with its "agreeably retro decor" description and reasonable sounding prices. So we decided to try it. And it was so good the first time, we went back a second time.

The first time, we sat outside under umbrellas on a very hot day, got ourselves a bottle of local red, and ordered a plate of pasta each, thinking that we'd order a mixed plate of cheese later if we were still hungry. We both had ravioli, which here translated to massive square parcels of perfectly cooked stuffed pasta. Sam went for the ???, whereas I decided to hedge my bets and get the tris - a plate with a few of each of their three ravioli flavours. All delicious. We also had a bit of an explore of the restaurant, which extended underground for a floor or so, with an ancient well in a corner, and various wine-storage nooks. Unfortunately our cheese plan fell through as the kitchen closed before we ordered it, and apparently only the chef was able to slice cheese. Never mind though.

On the second visit, we sat inside, went for the same red, since it was delicious the first time, and decided to have a bit more food. We started with a mixed salumi platter, then cut our pasta choices down to just two, sharing them of course. We finished off with ??? accompanied by a grappa for Sam, and divine Sicilian dessert wine, ???, for me. Then we went for a walk in the public gardens on the other side of the river, got excited about ducklings and some kind of large river rat in the river, and the turtles in the large pond in the gardens (well, I got excited), and then had a bit of a snooze too.