Bologna - An Introduction (part 1)

In a country noted for its food, where even the simplest dish at any local trattoria would satisfy a condemned man's request for an extraordinary last meal, it's hard to imagine a place that all the Italians tell you to go to "if you really want to eat well."  Does foodie heaven have a VIP section ?  Yes.  The Emilia Romagna region of Italy is such a place.

Emilia Romagna is the home to Bologna, Parma, Modena and many other smaller, less known places.  The most remarkable thing is that each of these tiny cities, villages and farms is an epicenter of a perfect food.  Parmagiano-Reggiano cheese.  Prosciutto crudo (Parma ham for those of you reading this at the deli counter).  Traditional aceto balsamico.  You may think that you've tasted these before and that they were very good.  Trust me, you've never really tasted them before and you have no idea how good good can be.  But if words and pictures can explain even 10% of what we saw, smelled and tasted, we'll do our best in these upcoming blog entries to tease your tastebuds into a frenzy.

Ron and I took a 4 day weekend (thanks to All Saints' Day being a national holiday here) to explore this region in Northern Italy.  Home base was Bologna and the Majestic Hotel.  We were situated right in the historic center, just off the main piazza and across the street from a beautiful basilica.
After checking in, we took a little stroll (or passeggiata as they call it here) to see the sights before dinner. We stopped in several churches/basilicas, one of which was actually a combination of 7 interconnected churches built over hundreds of years (Saint Stefano's).

We also stopped in a few shops, the most tantalizing being a chocolate shop that had more kinds of chocolate truffles than you can imagine.  One of the more unique things about Bologna is that most of the sidewalks are covered.  These covered porticos allow you to wander the city protected from the elements.  After a lovely dinner, we returned to the hotel to get a good night's sleep before our food adventures that were scheduled for the next day.

We had arranged through the hotel to see how the various specialty foods of the area were made.  We didn't know exactly what we were going to see (a big factory, a small farmhouse or something in between).  A driver picked us up at 8AM and we were off.

First stop was a small farm, just outside of Parma where the owner (who was the only person in the family that spoke English) greeted us.  The Agrizoo Farm was a real working dairy farm with over 100 cows.  We got a chance to see the cows that produced the milk that was going to be made into Parmagiano-Reggiano cheese and even some of the off-spring that had been born just the day before. The milk is collected twice daily, at 5AM and 5PM.

Heat & mix milk...

...separate & test...

...& lastly taste!

Each day's milk is transported just a few hundred feet into a small building where it's made into cheese.  We were told that the short distance improved the taste of the cheese because the milk did not have a chance to be 'bruised' before it arrived into the big copper vats where the transformation would take place.  Stepping inside, we saw just 2 men actually making the cheese, an older Italian dairy farmer and his younger apprentice.  At just the right moment, they took a cheesecloth like material to capture the just forming cheese to shape it into an enormous ball.  Cutting this cheese ball in half would yield 2 of those giant, delicious wheels of cheese.  Before the lengthy aging process can begin, these wheels must go into a salt bath for 28 days.

Capturing the curd...

...wrapping in cheese cloth...

...sliced into two wheels...

...placed in a mold & on to salting...

Each day the dairy farmer comes in to check their progress and to rotate the giant wheels in the huge salt water bath.  After that, they are transported just a few feet away into 'the vault.'  The vault is a large room with wooden shelving where each cheese wheel ages for typically 2 years or more.  The sight and smell of all these wheels of cheese is remarkable, as is the automated rotating machine that goes up and down the aisles every day to lift each wheel off of its perch, 'dusting' the shelf clean and returning the cheese wheel upside down to ensure uniform aging over time.

Salting bathes...

...on to storage..

...then on to heaven!

Each cheese wheel bears numerous markings.  Some indicated the day it was made.  Others indicate the ID number of the farm (yes, you can find out exactly which farm the hunk of cheese you buy in Kroger comes from by looking up its ID number).  Most importantly, though, is the Parmagiano-Reggiano seal that only gets applied when a 'judge' from the local consortium comes to verify whether the wheel is good enough to be called Parmagiano-Reggiano.  As you can imagine, we took home a few hunks of cheese with us to Rome to enjoy over the coming months.  And, yes, we did both fantasize about buying a whole wheel to bring back.  There's an almost sweet creaminess to this cheese that I've never tasted before, without the very sharp bite that you typically associate with it.  It's insanely delicious.

(Entering the sacred cheese vault & the cleaning of the cheese)

That's it for this episode of Ron & Tom jack up their cholesterol.  Tune in next time for the aging of the ham (and no that's not a reference to my upcoming birthday).  Ciao for now!

(Note: This installment was brought to you by, my honey, Tom. I thought our readers would prefer some class for once...)