When in Bologna...(or how Brits are more fun drunk) IV

Part 4 of K's Series

Before I go to SoIL and stay at a place that doesn’t have internet and barely a cell phone signal, I thought I’d finish this four part series. I may not take on four part stuff again because I never got around to finishing them. It isn’t like my job got in the way...since I don’t do that anymore :P

Well, on with the show! I’m sure the 12 of you just have to know why Brits are better drunk. :)

Our “light” lunch was at the beautiful farm of Corte d’Aibo. It is located about 13 miles (20 km) outside of Bologna, Italy. The views were simply breathtaking. We were on the top of a hill with vineyards as far as the eye could see. You just knew you were in Italian wine country. Corte d’Aibo was not only a restaurant, but a winery, and guesthouse. They even had an old farm dog named Mortadella. She did share the color with the baloney-like meat...and was very round.

View from Corte d'Aibo

There was bread waiting for us on the table with some wonderful EVOO and balsamic condiment. Then the all-organic wine began to flow. I suppose in a way it was fitting that we went to an organic winery for lunch. The entire day was focused on understanding where food came from and the ingredients involved. So when we started with Pignoletto Frizzante, made with 100% pigneletto grapes, I knew exactly what I was drinking. And, as the name suggests, it was slightly fizzy. Wonderful! Throughout the meal we actually had a taste of almost every wine on offer, plus one without a label. That’s how you know it’s good! N was closer to the wine bottle carnage and the corks seemed to be piled up in front of her. She wasn’t the one consuming the lion’s share though. She was sitting next a pair of British couples traveling together. They seemed to dominate the wine pouring extravaganza.

The beginning of the “light” lunch.

Our first course, after the bread, was juicy mellon topped with prosciutto. Alessandro recommended balsamic condiment drizzled on top. While I didn’t much care for prosciutto while at the factory, this combo was wonderful.

The second course was a small piece of lasagna. I knew this was going to be wonderful because I was having the dish where it was created. Something that I’ve noticed in the States is that many folks use cottage cheese in lasagna. The Italians use that fresh ricotta from the parmigiano-reggiano factories. I am not completely sure, but I think the noodles were made with spinach as well. Yummy!

The third dish was spaghetti with white truffle carbonara. Truffles aren’t a fungi that I often enjoy because of the cost and white truffles are the crème de la crème of the  subterranean mushroom. Of course white truffles come from northern Italy, so I was actually not only having a treat, but a local food as well. Since I was at an organic farmhouse, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were grown on the property. N doesn’t normally like mushrooms, but when mixed with the wonderful carbonara she was in spaghetti bliss.

I don't beg, I just wait for the third course

I should mention at this point that we are pretty full. The portions have been small, but our hosts continued to refill our plates to ensure they had no extras at the end of the meal. It was like going to grandma’s house. The Aussie sitting across from me physically covered her wine glass throughout the meal so that it wouldn’t keep being magically refilled. I didn’t mind since that should have meant more for me...except the Brits were monopolizing the wine refills!

The fourth course was a simple risotto dish cooked in the local Le Borre wine, which is made with Cabernet Sauvignon grapes. This gave the dish a very rich color with the flavor to match. We were instructed that a little bit of parmigiano-reggiano on top was a good idea. I knew from prior research on Italy that unless they offer you the cheese, the dish probably isn’t meant to have it on top. This one didn’t disappoint.

The fifth course was...ummm, it was...no idea. After having so many dishes, I don’t think I would have remembered even if I wrote this sooner. N and I agree there was a fifth course, but we have no idea what it was. It was good though. :)

The sixth, and final course was chicken thighs in the same Le Borre sauce as the risotto. The sides were local roasted veggies. While I really wanted to enjoy this dish, I was too full to have more than a bite. I wanted to take a break and have some wine but the bottles were all in front of the Brits. Damn!

After lunch we were offered coffee, which means espresso, and a small plate of bite-sized desserts. There were strawberries, brownies, and some type of wonderful lemon cake thing. This dish was small and delicate and I was able to have a few pieces of fruit.

It was time to be returned to the hotel. We were in the van with the Brits. They were a really lively bunch. The gentleman I was talking to kept dropping the F-bomb, which is friends commented that he only does when he was drunk. On the drive out and between locations there were probably five words spoken in the van. The way back was completely different. Once Brits have some alcohol, they completely open up. As a side note, I met a Croatian tennis player on a ferry in Croatia that used to live in London. She commented to us about her experience that the British weren’t very warm to outsiders. I suppose she just didn’t see enough of them drunk.

When in Bologna...(or how Brits are more fun drunk) III

Part 3 of K's Series

I have been reminded a few times that I haven’t completed this series. I apologize for that, but there were some interwebz difficulties while staying in Bol, Island of Brač, Croatia. Simply put they didn’t work so well from my working area. But I am now in Dubrovnik, Croatia and I have the capability to finish my series.

Our third (and final) stop before lunch on our Food Experience was a prosciutto ham factory. Much like parmigiano-reggiano cheese and balsamic vinegar of Modena, there is a consortium that oversees the quality of DOP prosciutto.

Seriously, it just sits there!

There really was too much to watch at the ham factory because it is mostly just waiting. I had always wrongfully assumed that prosciutto was smoked or heat treated in some way. Nope. Cold, salt, and pig are the core ingredients needed to make this delicious treat. It really was a food education!

I didn’t really enjoy the ham while at the factory with all the pork shoulders hanging around me, but I must admit that it was very sweet. Given the right temperature and proper care the sweetness of the pork really came out. It really makes me wonder why most American pork products end up with sugar in them. I suppose it is because we don’t want to wait...

Back to the process. The prosciutto factory receives fresh pork shoulders each week from a local butcher. There are very specific requirements on how old the pig is, what type of food it has received, and the type of conditions that it grew up in. If there is one thing I learned about DOP products, it is that everything is traceable from the field to the factory so that you know exactly what you are putting in your body. When the butcher drops off the shoulders, the delivery driver waits until each one is individually inspected to ensure it meets the standards of DOP prosciutto. The ones that don’t make the cut are sent back to the butcher and used for other products.

Once the shoulders are in the warehouse they are salted and then lots of time goes by. They are moved to different temperature-controlled rooms during the process, but that’s how it works: salt, wait, salt, wait, then wait some more! Unlike DOP parmigiano-reggiano cheese, which is certified by sound, a horse bone needle is poked into specific spots and the aroma is how the certification is made.

You have probably figured out that I haven’t mentioned the Brits in the post. That is because there really was nothing spectacular about this part of the trip. We didn’t even get very much wine! Part IV will fully explain the story when I talk about the “light” lunch we were served. :)

When in Bologna...(or how Brits are more fun drunk) II

Part 2 of K's Series

I started off the first post with a teaser about how you’ve probably never had real balsamic vinegar. This is actually the post where I explain that view. Real balsamic vinegar is the “balsamico di Modena” which is a region near Tuscany. Unlike the parmigiano-reggiano cheese, balsamic vinegar can be translated. Similar to the wonderful cheese though it is regulated by the same consortium and the real stuff holds the “DOP” seal of approval. You know you’ve got the real thing because there is a special 100ml bottle that holds the tasty black gold. And it’s slightly expensive. The 12 year old (youngest allowed) will set you back around €40 with the extravecchio (25 years and older) running into the €100s.

the only difference between makers is the label

Taking a step back a bit, I’d like to show you how balsamic is made. I have always thought that oil and vinegar with bread was wonderful. The flavor of balsamic vinegar mixed with the EVOO just made so much sense in my mouth. I figured that balsamic vinegar was a byproduct of making wine. You make wine and then you have the left over grape musk which makes the vinegar. I was only partially correct. Proper balsamic isn’t a byproduct, it is the product. Traditional, DOP approved, balsamic vinegar has one ingredient: cooked grape musk. The grapes can vary (slightly), but that’s it. That’s all true balsamic vinegar is.

The pink bunny has nothing on this!

Now it really doesn’t matter too much, which is why I never knew that fact, but it is amazing. To make the balsamico di Modena they put the cooked grape musk into a set of five or more successfully smaller barrels, known as a battery. Then they wait. Each year they take liquid from the larger barrels to refill the smaller and repeat for 12 years. Then, with DOP approval, they can produce 1L per battery. Ninety percent of that can be bottled and sold and ten percent is kept by the consortium, no doubt as “quality control.” Just like Her Majesty's Custom Service quality controlled my ornamental Japanese sword, no doubt.

There are other options of course, if they wait 25 years they have a different type, it’s the extra special (name of old stuff). The “factory,” which was actually just a villa, that we went to was Villa San Donnino and they supplement their income with balsamico condimento (balsamic condiment) which is a six year vintage mixed with wine vinegar. By law they aren’t allowed to call it balsamic vinegar because it isn’t, not really. Their particular one is called “nerone” and it is going to be great on some salad!

The Brits.

My title would have you believe that there is a story behind the British reference and now I will start threading that story. The finale, of course, will be in part four. :) Our tour group of the food experience consisted of 14 people, mostly old couples...and us. There were minorities of Americans and Australians with the core group being English. I’m pretty sure that the Brit next to us had not only never had true balsamic vinegar, but never had vinegar in the first place. Which is strange considering the Brits invented “brown sauce” which is a vinegar-based bbq sauce. I didn’t see it first-hand but my adventure partner assures me that her face was priceless. She hated every one of the samples we tried. We had commercial balsamic vinegar with more ingredients that are pronounceable, a white balsamic condiment, balsamic condiment, 12 year old balsamic, and a 45 year balsamic. I felt like I was at a Scotch tasting. The Brit was having none of it...poor woman.

Something unexpected.

Do you remember the ricotta I mentioned in the first part of this series? Alessandro bought some of the fresh stuff and served it at the balsamic villa. We had ricotta with balsamic jelly on top. This was simply wonderful and I’m not sure if having the same thing from store-bought would have the same flavor (when I try I’ll let you know). For dessert we had gelato with the nerone drizzled on top. I had no idea that gelato and balsamic vinegar could be so wonderful!

Prologue.

Many Italians in the region make balsamic vinegar but don’t go through the pain of having it certified for sale. It’s for family use. The traditional model is that a battery is made on the birth of each child by a special group of coopers in the region. I say special because there are actually openings in the barrels because the evaporation each year plays an important role in the process. So how did the folks at Villa San Domnino get involved in actually being one of the 100ish families that actually sell the product? When the current owner’s family bought the 1900s villa in the 40s, they discovered a few balsamic batteries in the attic. They now sell 50 bottles of year of the 100 year old balsamic. I couldn’t afford it, but the 45 year old looked like molasses, so I can only guess the brilliant flavor of the kingpin of their operation.

Next up: the prosciutto farm

Odds and Ends from Bologna

K found us an unbelievable deal on the hotel we’ve been staying at for the last six days. I have no idea what kind of voodoo magic website he went to when he booked this place, but hats off to him. The only catch is that they charge for Internet, which is why you haven’t seen many posts this week. In fact, they charge for everything, so I’ve been making good use of my laundry on the road skills.

I have to add that this hotel has the weirdest toilet I’ve ever seen. It’s some kind of suction powered thing, but you have to punch this big button somewhere between 4 and 25 times before it finally “powers up” and flushes. It’s like cranking a generator, which is pretty much the last thing I want to do in the middle of the night. I’m going to have freakishly muscular thumbs by the time we leave this place. I take consolation in the fact that our neighbors appear to be having a worse time of it than we are, based on the number of times I can hear them pushing the button and yelling in their bathroom.

In other news, we’ve been exploring the local grocery stores, trying out a variety of foods and discount beverages. This afternoon we bought a bottle of 1 euro “champagne” which was so classy it decided to open itself while sitting on the desk. It was like an alcoholic shotgun went off in our room. Scared the ever-loving bejeebus out of me, which was evidenced by the screaming of “Oh holy shit!” and diving for cover.

I'll take a mimosa!

Tonight we finally went to the dive restaurant down the street from our hotel. I don’t know why this is, but in every country one rule seems to hold true: The dodgier the exterior, the better the food. This place was no exception. Their pasta rocked and they topped it off with freshly grated Parmesan. I heart Italy. I’m glad I didn’t find this gem of a restaurant until tonight, or I would have been there for every meal.

The next place we’re staying at in Croatia doesn’t have Internet either, but I imagine we’ll be able to find a café somewhere to indulge our blogging and Cracked reading needs. Thanks for reading and we’ll see you on the other side of the Adriatic!

Relaxing in Bologna

If you’ve been reading K’s four part special on our Italian food tour, you know that we had to get up crazy early to stand outside and wait for our ride (who was late). The single gulp of coffee I was able to choke down before running out the door was scalding hot on the back of my throat, and I was in a fairly pissy mood.

As we drove to our destination, I noticed all of the angry drivers laying on their horns and realized that it was a Monday morning. Glancing at my watch, I saw that only two weeks before, I would’ve been driving to work. Now I was watching the sunrise over the Tuscan countryside on a highway to Milan. I continued to stare out the window, seeing the tiny villages give way to vineyards dotting the hills, and couldn’t help but smile. Never again will I start off my week with that commute.

We originally decided that we would stay in Bologna and day trip out to Florence and Pisa. On the day we wanted to go to Florence, we stood in four different lines at the train station, looking for a ticket machine that would accept cash since our American credit cards are pretty much useless here. After 30 frustrating minutes, I turned to my adventure partner and said, “I’m just going to throw an idea out here, and you can throw it right back. What if we just said ‘fuck it’ and stayed in Bologna for the day?”

He quickly agreed and after a few minutes of walking, we ended up at this amazing park over looking the city. I was surprised how many people were in the park, considering it was a Tuesday morning. For the most part, they were sitting around on the benches, chatting with each other, and smoking cigarettes.

The scene reminded me of Spain. Our tour guide in Barcelona had explained that unemployment amongst young adults in the city is at 52%, so they have some free time on their hands.

Whether in Barcelona or Bologna, no one seemed to be in a hurry to get anywhere. After an hour or so, we wandered from one end of the city to the other, and ended up at a different park. Same story. Loads of people sleeping in the sun, picnicking, and chain-smoking their way through another long afternoon.

I thought to myself, ‘When in Bologna,’ and sat down next to the pond. I watched turtles, fish of all sizes, ducks, and geese splash in the water. I played 15 games of Sudoku (the difficult ones, IN PEN!!). I drank two cups of espresso and ate some salami from the co-op. I spent another hour people-watching. Pleather is making a huge comeback here.

I returned to the park today, where I read a book for an hour and drank a beer in the sun. Then I lay in the grass and watched the clouds for a while. I think the last time I watched the clouds was when I was a child, and I’ve been missing out. When I was kid, I would think to myself, ‘That one looks like a marshmallow!’ My adult brain is much more creative. ‘That one looks like a three-legged Welsh Corgi laying on a throw pillow next to Charlie Sheen!’

My brain can only focus on cute things now.

My ever-pragmatic adventure partner says that the last two days should’ve demonstrated to me why the European economy is in the toilet. For now, I’m choosing to ignore that fact. Maybe it’s the sun or that I’m just not as stressed out from continually hating my job, but my time in the park has been some of the most relaxing few days of my life. I’ve finally had a few hours to simply sit in the grass and think. I didn’t worry about what I had to do next, and for once I wasn’t in a hurry.

I might not be able to maintain this lifestyle forever, but I hope that when I return to “normal” I’ll still take the time to watch the clouds, if only to see what shapes emerge. Most of all, I hope I can cling to my newfound ability to slow down and (literally) smell the roses.

When in Bologna...(or how Brits are more fun drunk) I

The first part of K's four part series. Enjoy!

You’ve probably never had real balsamic vinegar. I didn’t realize that was true for me until a few days ago when I had the opportunity to have the real stuff! Let me tell you about what I’ve learned. Read on with this four part series on our food experience.

To start things off, I should give you some history. As I’m writing this I’m sitting in my hotel room in Bologna, Italy. Bologna is a really fun city to explore and it doesn’t take that long. Most of the main streets are arcaded which makes even the hottest day enjoyable. It holds Europe’s oldest university (est. 1088) and is a must for any culinary adventure. I bet when you think of “ragu,” you probably think of a brand of spaghetti sauce. Ragù is actually the name of the local bolognese sauce which is exactly what you think it is (expect there isn’t added sugar). Additionally tortellini and lasagna have their origins in the region. I’ve been in love with this region and I didn’t even know it! If pasta isn’t your thing, they also created mortadella, which we know as baloney. In my opinion, this makes Bologna the culinary equivalent to a Roman forum.

The city is not very touristy, which is really nice, and most of the things worth seeing in the city center are actually free. We did find a tour that did look very interesting though. It’s called Italian Days Food Experience and it offers “culinary adventure and food education.” I had no idea how true that was going to be.

You always have to wonder about a tour you can only research online, but when we looked at the reviews on TripAdvisor we found over 300 reviews which were all five stars. This just doesn’t happen online. The last time that happened was when I found a five star cat heating pad on Amazon. The cats loved it! But back to the story...we knew we were in a for a treat. The tour is run by a wonderful couple, Alessandro and Barbara. Barbara handled all of the emailing and scheduling and Alessandro actually conducted the tour. On our chosen day we had to get up crazy early and be outside our hotel at 7:25am. The driver was 10 minutes late, but Alessandro gave us a call to let us know they were running late. Once we got picked up we were driven about 25 miles outside the city in a quiet, unmarked van. Luckily, the driver was wearing an Italian suit and aviators, so we knew it was legit.

The first stop on our food experience was a parmigiano-reggiano cheese factory. The surrounding area smelled of cow manure, which told me the place made fresh cheese. Since the outside of the building was so nondescript, I can only tell you that it was the factory that stamps their cheese 2552. So if you ever see that on a wheel of cheese, we’ve been there! We got out of the van to be greeted by an energetic man named Alessandro. He was wearing a pair of Keds that were colored to look like an Italian flag and a T-shirt of Rembrandt in a beret drinking a coffee from a straw. Very classy! :)

We quickly learned about what real parmigiano-reggiano cheese is and how it is actually controlled by an consortium that holds regulating authority. I’ll spare you the details but the important part is that Denominazione di origine controllata, controlled designation of origin, or simply DOP is the all powerful authority. I learned why we were at the cheese factory so early, they actually start to make the cheese around 5am. We missed the cooking part, but were able to watch them pull the cheese out of the massive 110 gallon copper cooking vats.

Pulling the curd

They began pulling the massive blocks of cheese out and the head chef (I guess you could call him the big cheese) cut them into what would become the cheese wheel. We were slightly shocked by the lack of hairnet and tank top, but with cheese this tasty, what are you to do?

The big cheese

Following this, we toured the rest of the cheese factory to learn about the rest of the process and how much waiting is involved. Before I give you the quick version, I wanted to point out that we also go to see ricotta being made. It’s actually just recooked milk/water/salt and a little steam. It’s a byproduct of the process of making parmigiano-reggiano. The factory sells the fresh stuff to make some extra money. Back to the real cheese.

Cheese vault

Parmigiano-reggiano cheese must be aged at least 12 months and then be individually certified by the DOP to actually be called parmigiano-reggiano. The cheese comes in three grades, parmigiano-reggiano first grade, second grade, and simply “cheese.” Third grade doesn’t get to be called parmigiano-reggiano. In the US if the name is translated, then it isn’t the real thing. If you see a wedge of cheese you can tell the difference because each piece has been labeled, if you can read the parmigiano-reggiano, then it’s first grade. If it has lines in it, second grade. Can’t see any writing? Cheese. Oh and the DOP actually uses sound alone to determine the grade the cheese receives. Uniform sound is the good stuff. :)

Seal of approval

After the tour we were given some Lambrusco, which is a local fizzy red wine. There was also some 14 and 24 month samples of cheese. The older the cheese the more “crystals” that are in it. I had always assumed this was the salt in the cheese, but I learned that it is actually the free amino acids that have been created in the process. Already one fourth finished with my culinary adventure and I received a food education.

Next up: the balsamic vinegar “factory” and why Brits are better drunk