"There is no love sincerer than the love of food." — George Bernard Shaw

One of the best things about living in Italy, Emilia Romagna, Parma, Colorno is the ability to drive, or even bike ride, to the local farm and buy fresh cheese. The other day, Brittany, Arina and I drove to Caseificio San Salvatore where we previously saw the making of Parmigiano Reggiano and bought freshly made ricotta. Ricotta is technically a whey cheese, made from the leftover liquid from the Parmigiano Reggiano production. The previous evening's part-skim milk is mixed with the morning's whole milk with rennet (stomach lining from the slaughtered cow which is washed, dried and chopped into a powder and preserved with sea salt) which causes the milk to coagulate - changing the structure from liquid to jelly-like. As the temperatures rise, curds form which will become the Parmigiano Reggiano. The heavy curds sink to the bottom of the copper cauldron and the whey on top will weigh down on the curds for about an hour until it has cooled. Then, the Parmigiano Reggiano curds are lifted out to be molded and the whey is vacuumed out. The whey is then recooked (the literal meaning of ricotta) until it creates its own cheese curd. 

The fresh ricotta is so moist and soft in the mouth, it delicately melts on the tongue. It exudes evocations of the country land and tastes distinctly of the cow. As much as it reminds me of the farm just down the road, I can't help but taste something sweetly ethereal, almost like a home-made marshmallow. It is delicious on bread, stuffed in zucchini flowers, eaten as a herby dip with celery, or just plain irresistible to eat it straight out of the tub with a spoon - if my fingers can grab a spoon fast enough before delving in...

I don't know why I haven't gone to S. Salvatore more throughout the year given it's locality, convenience, and deliciousness....damn. But I feel spoiled already, almost undeserving, just having this opportunity. 

Culatello from the Po Valley: "You can't just eat good food. You've got to talk about it too. And you've got to talk about it to somebody who understands that kind of food." — Kurt Vonnegut (Jailbird)

"....è la mia terra: la Bassa Parmense, la pianura emiliana in riva al Po. Qui la passione politica arriva spesso ad una intensità preoccupante: eppure questa gente è simpatica ed ospitale e generosa e ha uno spiccato senso d'umorismo.
Deve essere il sole, un sole maledetto che martella i cervelli durante tutta l'estate.
Oppure deve essere la nebbia, una nebbia cupa che opprime i cervelli durante tutto l'inverno.
....Per me il Po comincia a Piacenza, e fa benissimo perché è l'unico fiume rispettabile che esista in Italia: e i fiumi che si respettano si sviluppano in pianura, perché l'acqua è roba fatta per rimanere orizzontale, e soltanto quando è perfettamente orizzontale l'acqua conserva tutta la sua naturale dignità.
Le cascate del Niagara sono fenomeni da baraccone, come gli uomini che camminano sulle mani."

        - Giovannino Guareschi.

......


"Proprio nelle parole di Guareschi si possono cogliere tutti gli elementi che contribuiscono a creare l'unicità della Bassa e del Culatello: la gente ☺, il Po ~~, la nebbia ☁ e il caldo afoso☀. I pochi, piccoli, semplici, ma magici e preziosi segreti del Culatello di Zebello e del suo speciale legame con la Bassa Parmense, risiedono quindi nel particolare e felice connubio tra la sapienza delle genti, lo spirito del luogo e il clima di questa terra."

         - Elisabetta Bertuzzi, Il Culatello di Zibello da prodotto a marca

I TIED THIS CULATELLO!

Christmas in Parma

"Unexpected intrusions of beauty. That is what life is." Saul Bellow

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked. Peter Piper must have been a Masochist.

442. That's the number of pepper varieties that are grown just down the road from us in Parma, at Azienda Agraria Sperimentale Stuard. Only 20% of them are original species, the rest have been cross-bred by Mario Dadomo, making it Italy's, or I think possibly the world's, largest collection of peppers. It is wonderful to see that although many veggies are becoming less diverse and standardized, it is not true for Parma's peppers. Although Italian spicy food may be more associated with Calabria, and hot chili peppers are often associated with India or South America, Parma has the right climatic conditions to grow such diverse varieties of peppers. 

Rows and rows of peppers grow in alphabetical order, with appropriately heated names like Apologize, Ciao, Bodyguard, and Sahara. Red, orange, yellow, purple, green, chocolate-brown, black splattered across the rows of plants like a Jackson Pollock painting. Long, round, fat, wrinkled, split, squat, berry-like, phallic, olive-shaped, and bulbs of strung Christmas tree lights are only a few adjectives to describe the shapes. I especially liked the topepo - a pepper that looks like a tomato - hence tomato + peperoncino. The diversity was overwhelming and fascinating. Some pointed vertically like reprimanding witches fingers. Some sprouted spiky red tubes with a sparse amount of leaves. Some had nearly-black dark purple leaves with green undertones that looked identical to basilico rosso. Some dangled sadly, rotting from the season's cold and dropping easily to the ground. Some were like an open box of Crayola - red, orange, yellow, green and purple begging to be picked. Some looked like marbles or Christmas ornaments, bunched together.

Twinkled like a starry night.

Peter Pepper. mmhmm.

basilico rosso?

grapes? berries? ornaments? peppers?

We followed Mario through the field, stepping over the low rows of plants and burying our feet into the mud saturated by the weekend's rain. Our tongue's burned as we tasted different peppers and we tried desperately to remember not to touch our eyes with our spice-stained finger tips. Despite the balmy autumn weather, Arina's nose is still glowing like rudolph since she touched it yesterday morning. 

taste the habanero's burn.

Mario started growing peppers 15 years ago as a hobby and could tell a story, and/or history, behind every pepper. SiQuiero was grown to mark his wedding with his Spanish wife. Habanero Chocolate is not named brown because that sounds less appetizing. One pepper from Bolivia only grows in the early spring, typical to the weather of the Bolivian Andes. Many people think that it is the seeds that give out the spice in the bite, but it is in fact the membrane - but the seeds are attached to the membrane so the association, although wrong, makes sense. Birds cannot detect the heat from peppers and in this way as they prefer to nibble on the little peppers, the ''shit'' of the birds, as Mario so awkwardly explained, will spread the seeds and create new pepper plants. And of course, the smaller the pepper, the spicier in general.

Mario and his pepper catalogue-bible.

It awe-astounding to see such a field of peppers - really just beautiful against the dreary Saturday morning fog. It is also a pity that it costs about 2,000 euro to register a new variety, so that the majority of his peppers are not protected. He is trying to promote his e-commerce business online and needs help with translating the Italian catalogue into English so that more people internationally can buy the seeds. Arina and I offered to help translate in our spare time, for our own interest in peppers and all that is spicy - tutti piccante - and in exchange, he gave us two plastic bags to fill with our hearts desire from his pepper collection. It reminded me of going apple-picking in the fall, but instead of baking pies, we'll be making hot hot hot sauce. 

and this what's left, even after we gave
handfuls away at Caro's brunch.

Colorno nearly Flooded...again.

 This is what Colorno is meant to look like:

 This is what Colorno looks like after a weekend full of rain:

and when I say, again, I mean it's not the first time...

 Crossing over the bridge, I thought the stones would surely disintegrate below me and I would be washed away into the murky current of the Parma River. As the rain adamantly continued for the rest of the night, I thought the river would completely overflow and we would have no way of getting to class in the morning. 

Class actually was canceled the next morning, but because the professor called out sick at the last minute, not because of the flooding river. 

The bridge is still standing strong and the walls of the Reggia, although missing a little more paint, have not succumbed to the submerging pressure of the temperamental river. 

calma! 

let's hope it stays this way for the rest of the winter.

Tortelli d'Italia: a Colorno event not to be Missed

Whenever there's a town event in Colorno, it has proved to be a day not to be missed. For being a small town, and for being an Italian town, the events are extremely well organized and put together with impressive turn outs. Colorno comes alive and I can never understand where all the people who fill the cobblestoned Piazza Garibaldi come from. This past Saturday, 10 October, was no such exception with Terzo Gran Gala del Tortel Dols, the Third Grand Gala of Tortel Dols. We learned about it the previous week from pamphlets when we returned from Spain and despite ambitious plans to visit Sienna for the weekend, timing-wise I knew the trip wouldn't work out, but I also knew I didn't want to miss this all-day dedication to sweet tortelli's. Even the students that live in Parma came for it. 

chestnut, creme, ricotta filled pastries

Market stalls selling Parma area-typical cured meats, cheeses, preserved foods in jars, pastries and knick-knack home goods lined the streets leading to the piazza in the center of town which was bombarded with more stalls and giant tents covering lectured conferences led by food-industry chefs and critics, pasta-making demonstrations, and tables to sit and eat the area's specialty foods being prepared by resident volunteers. 

il famoso chef Massimo Bottura dell’Osteria Francescana e il giornalista e critico Enzo Vizzari, delle Guide de L’Espresso

busy Piazza Garibaldi in Colorno

The event was not only sponsored by neighborhood businesses but by the Brotherhood of Tortel Dols - the pasta has it's own fraternity! As we sat down under the tent to encounter the over-priced pasta so apparently typical of the region it has its own festival and brotherhood, yet having never tasted in the last eight months of living here (I guess that's the whole point of it's rediscovery and promotion) we sat at a round table next to one reserved for one of the Brotherhood "sects." Decked out in velvet robes, medallions, badges, and even tortelli-shaped hats, these men and women must have an incredibly strong affinity for this traditional pasta, rich in quirky history and cultural curiosities. 

As these costumes became more frequent within the crowd, we were able to divert our attention back to the guest of honour: tortel dols. A pile of just under a dozen ragged-edged stuffed pasta sat on a flimsy plastic plate, in a light tomato based sauce and sprinkled with Parmigiano Reggiano, some melted into the sauce while thicker clumps contrasted white like freshly powdered snow.  Biting into it was unexpectedly sweet, despite the name Tortel Dols, sweet tortelli, the prune and fig fruit flavors we distinguished are not typical pasta fillings one is accustomed to. The light tomato-based sauce doused in butter and parmesan was a savory and complimentary contrast to the firm pasta (the Italians know al dente to a tee) which enveloped the jammy filling.

culinary kudos.

Of course no meal highlighting the gastronomic specialities of Parma would be complete without some cured meat and the infamously crusty, potentially lethal Parma bread roll. Maybe not the best accompanying dish to sweet tortelli, but with bottles of Ceci lambrusco and Malvasia popping around us, some good friends who bought enough cheese and epicurean delights for the night's dinner together, along with a sunny early-fall Sunday to enjoy with no class the next morning, it was all together the perfect combination. 

Once again, Colorno out did itself, by bringing people together and reinforcing its pride in its local culture, history, and traditions seamlessly entwined in gastronomy.

According to legendary folklore, Maria Luiga, Napolean's wife who lived in the regal palace which is our University, would make tortel dols for Po River boatmen and the sweet filling represented it being made from the heart, for her sweet hearts. I think. At least this is my won interpretation. Google Translate sucks. and my Italian is embarrassingly bad.

According the website's recipe, the reason why we couldn't pinpoint the flavours or ingredients makes complete sense:

The original recipe Tortel DOLS FILED WITH THE FELLOWSHIP 
INGREDIENTS FOR 100 TORTELLI 

MUSTARD (Home-made): 
1.50 kg perry noble (a type of pear...)
1.50 kg pumpkin mustard (white cucumber) (how are these related)
1 kg of quinces 
2 lemons sliced 
3 cups of sugar for every kilo of fresh fruit 

Clean and slice the fruit. 
Allow to marinate overnight with the sugar. 
The next day, pour the sauce that has formed and boil for 
a few minutes to discover the pot and then pour it over the whole fruit. 
Continue with this for three days. 
On the fourth day boil the whole pot in discovery for two hours. 
Allow to cool and add 1 g of mustard (you buy in 
pharmacy) per kg of fruit. 
Pot. (just pot.)
The chutney will be ready after two months. (woah)

FILLING: 

6 hg mustard 
1.5 gr of breadcrumbs. 
1 liter of boiled wine (made by boiling grape juice fermented 24 hours, so it remains one of three parts) as needed 
if you prefer less sweet filling add two tablespoons of plum jam. 
Good mulled wine to warm (not boiling), and scorching the bread. 
When it is cool add the mustard, finely chopped (Including the slices of lemon). 
Mix all handmade. 
It must be a mixture too dry but rather soft, so, if necessary, add more mustard. 
Let stand a couple of days. 
To make the pastry as usual.

John & Sheelagh come to Italy! Emilia Romagna.

so after 6 weeks of summer holidays and 2 days of school learning all about parmigiano reggiano and one morning learning about food economics, came the much anticipated arrival of my parents. i couldn't wait to show them around my life in Colorno - in three minutes flat - "well, this is all of it," - to reintroduce mum to team zinzani after the initial awkwardness back in March when none of us knew each other, to see Dad again as there was a slight possibility work would hold him up, and for the itinerary I planned over the summer as tour guide extraordinaire to finally come to fruition. unfortunately i had forgotten all of my italian over the summer holidays but hopefully they wouldn't mind.

first stop: a quick tour around the University and gardens, an introduction to friends, a hello to the tutors, and then lunch in piazza garibaldi. obligatory: the cured meat plate. pasta. and wine. unfortunately, our favourite local friend and waiter, san daniele, had moved to parma and there was a new guy. how was i supposed to impress my parents know with knowing the locals and speaking the language? so instead of one cured meat plate enough for 3 - we got 3 cured meat plates. i looked at it in horror, having had enough cured meat over the last seven months, but then, of course, ate it anyways. my wonderful italian skills and lack of communication with the new guy also lead us to only having one pasta dish instead of the two regional dishes I wanted my parents to try, but that turned out in our favour as it was way too much food anyways. typical. a perfect introduction for john and sheelagh to life in italy!

a walk around beautiful parma filled the sunny afternoon and then we rushed back in the bigger than an-IQ rental car to Colorno to meet some of the students at where else, but the pub! it was so nice for everyone to come and meet my parents although i'm sure when drinks are involved it doesn't take much convincing. we sat outside drinking bubbly prosecco's and bright orange spritz's while mauro spoiled us with large platters of more cured meat. a typical wednesday afternoon in Colorno. bliss.

then it was off to Antica Corte Pallavicina to show my parents where we all fell in love on our first stage. it's a beautiful old castle estate and farm in the countryside - found only by taking the windy yet extremely flat scenic route of emilia romagna - complete with its own large garden of vegetables and a courtyard fluttered with peacocks. we had a lovely apartment-style room that I could have easily moved into with views of the cows munching on muddy grass outside and the roosters that would wake us up in the morning. 

wedding destination #1

dressed up and ready for dinner, we started with some aged parmesan cheese ("how old is this parmigiano reggiano? 32 months. and where is it from? from our mountain cows' milk.") along with some extremely soft melt in your mouth homemade sausage, freshly made bread, and fizzy house lambrusco. we then had a tour of Massimo Spigaroli's famous culatello-curing cellar where I'm not sure if Arina and I impressed or embarrassed the tour guide with our extensive knowledge of cured meats when she wasn't able to answer the other guests' questions. future cured meat tour-guide job? possibly. my parents gasped, breathed in the intoxicating meaty smell, and laughed in amazement at all the round cured meat wrapped in bladder, tied in twine, and individually labeled, which hung from the ceiling and along the walls but by now, this was a pretty standard sight for us.

the dampness (from the proximity of the po river) of the cellar is crucial for the culatello curing process and the Spigaroli's know exactly when to open and close the windows - unlike many climate-controlled prosciutto di parma facilities. it keeps the meat soft and ensures it's unique characteristic. culatello is a boneless chunk of meat from the largest muscle from the rear of the pig. it is a PDO product made only in 8 villages within a restricted area as anywhere else doesn't have the knowledge or the specific terroir-ic conditions to make it. it is cured only in the winter months, from october to march, for a minimum of 12 months in which the winter humidity and the po river-low valley fog ensure a long and slow drying process. 

breathing in the damp cellar's lovely yet unforgettable aromas of cured meats and the nearby po river humid winds blowing through the windows.

"no, you can't make prosciutto di parma and culatello because culatello comes from this upper part but with all the leftover meat you can make finocco and salami's......"

"and over here is prince charles' culatello, and here is armani's and marchesi over here"

the tour ended with seeing the parmigiano reggiano storage and where they used to pack ice outside. dinner then followed as we entered into the dimly-lit restaurant built with two large glass walls on either side - one overlooking the vine-draped courtyard and the other into the dark countryside which was occasionally being lit up by a fantastic lightening storm in the distance. the restaurant uses local and home grown fruits, vegetables and animals. Arina and I chose the two different eight-course tasting menus, recommended by friends, while my parents chose two dishes each, overwhelmed by the amount of food they had already eaten that day.

?

Il Podio dei Culatelli di suino bianco 18 mesi e 27
del presidio Slow Food, di "Nera Parmigiana" di 37 mesi e giardiniera di Corte

Gli gnocchi di rana con ortaggi verdi e fiori di zucchine

I tortelli di erbette alla parmigiana

I ravioli di lumache fondenti in sfoglia di granoturco
con foglie di rapa rossa e fiori 

I soffici ai tre parmigiani in minestra tiepida di verdure

Il filetto di rombo in ristretto di gamberi rossi,
tortino di fagiolini e acciughette

La faraona ricoperta di culatello cotta nella creta del Po
accompagnata dai nostri ortaggi

Il petto d'anatra pezzata nera in crosta di aromatiche e le sue verdure 

La selezione dei Parmigiani: dalle cantine: i parmigiani di pianura , collina, montagna, 

vacche rosse, vacche brune, vacche bianche

lesson learned, years later repeated from a bad reaction in paris, i am still allergic to frog legs. 

"After all, you only have one life, so you should try to make the most of it." Holes - Louis Sachar

before going on a study trip to Belgium, it is obligatory to have beer tasting classes. in the first class, we learned about the different ingredients and the general process of making beer. we tasted 7 German beers, a Pilsener from Czech Republic and a local Parma beer from Italy. our second class, started at 10am and included 3 British pale ales, 1 Scottish golden ale, 1 British IPA, 1 British porter, and 1 British stout and 1 Imperial Stout from Scotland,  and 1 Sierra Nevada from the USA. oh and a british barley wine of 11.7% ABV. my favorite was our professor's home made american pale ale. this would definitely prepare us for the breweries we would visit in Belgium. 

10 beers 10 am. no problem.

ps. i've completely forgotten how to say "obligatory" without an italian accent. ob-lig-a-tory. 

pps. i like the word "coagulation"

<3

after class, we caught the train to Milan to spend the night with Diana's friends before catching a 6:55am flight to Holland. in a very typical italian way, we went out to dinner then had cocktails in an outdoor bar with a garden canopy only to wake up 2 hours later to catch the bus to the airport. tiredness aside, following a weekend in Genova and the sea-side, a Parma Summer Party, Fourth of July/Canada Day festivities, following and cheering the World Cup games, and classes in between - regardless, we're always on the go and up for anything that comes our way, making the most of life. 

camogli. 

sweltering summer.

american- and canadian-ness in italy.

Holland makes it to the Finals!