There really is no place better to start a food tour of Italy than in the Emilia Romagna region. Home of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, culatello, Lambrusco wines, balsamic vinegar, and the world’s best restaurant, one could stay for weeks and still not sample everything the area has to offer.
Our home for the first few days of our trip has been an old customs house on the banks of the River Po, halfway between Milan and Bologna. That’s Eric waving from the tower window (only kidding). It’s wonderful to be awakened each morning to the lowing of cows in the distance, the cooing of doves in the rafters and the incredibly loud squawk of the peacocks in the courtyard.
We made it to FICO Eataly in Bologna. It gets mixed reviews, but for those uninitiated to all the delicacies Italy has to offer, it’s a great place to find out more. We did eat Ragu Bolognese in Bologna and also shopped for my favorite designer there (hopefully I will be able to fit into those clothes after this trip).
Some of our interesting side trips have included a tour of parmigiano reggiano producer, a culatello producer (who also owns the hotel and restaurant where we are staying), a local winery, and a balsamic vinegar producer.
The story behind how you make parmigiano reggiano is fascinating. It gets aged a minimum of twelve months. We were able to visit the local producer, Censi. The photo below is just one of the rows of the cheese they have aging. It’s interesting to see just how much of the production is done by hand.
The area is still very much known for it’s
Parma ham, but everything is very localized. It’s
probably produced about twenty miles from here, but that doesn’t stop one from have a bit of Parma ham curing nearby.
He real story here is the culatello. Our hotelier is a key producer. He even has a museum on the premises. A classic meal here will include a sampling of culatello’s aged for different intervals. One of the aging cellars (below) is just three floors below our room. I believe his grandfather used to cure culatello for Verdi who lived about 15 miles from here. The cellar has names of people and restaurants around the globe that it’s reserved for. I believe we can get it now in the US, but it wasn’t available until the end of last year.
Will send more when I take a break between food and drink stops!
