Cheese and Chocolate

I have to admit that school-wise, this last week was ridiculously enjoyable. Cheese Tasting, Italian, Wild edible herbs (during which we foraged around the park with an ethnobotanist), and Chocolate tasting. Then Friday, one of the classes had graduation, to which we were all invited, after a talk by Carlo Petrini, the founder of Slow Food. Mostly though, I've been getting excited about this next week...Sicily. We leave tomorrow on a flight out of Milan, and we'll be there until late Saturday. The schedule is packed and I will probably not be able to eat anything for several days after I return. I think we have a dinner planned with just about every slow food chapter in the entire western half of the island. This is what last week looked like...

I don't think I like Italian-German food!

Last week was primarily 2 classes: Semiotics (the study of signs) and Rural Economy. Both were very conceptual and really, neither are among my favorites so far. Also, I gave a presentation on powdered milk for the conclusion of food technology. At the last minute, we were told that there would be no classes on Monday...3 day weekend! A friend and I decided to go to Trento (as in "The Council of Trent"), which is in a northern province bordering Austria, Trentino-Alto Adige. I mostly wanted to go because I had never been in this region and I needed to cross another off my list. It was a very pretty city, surrounded by snow covered mountains, but very confusing. Not only was everything now labeled in both Italian and German, the food was this very odd mixture of the two. On Saturday evening, I joined a group of Trentini at a place resembling very much a biergarten (?) complete with platters of sausages (both Italian and German style), sauerkraut, potatoes, and mustard, with lots off beer to wash it down. The next night was local spinach gnocchi with house brewed beer and rye bread, with strudel for dessert. It was like a weird dream, and I'm still not sure what I think about it! But now only 3 regions remain on my "never eaten a traditional meal there" list. So I feel accomplished.

Cheese and violins

Last week, in addition to classes on Wine Technology, we had 2 days of stage for Parmigiano-Reggiano. We traveled in and around Parma to see cows, old men making cheese, businesses promoting and protecting the brand, and large warehouses full of the straw colored wheels. Unfortunatly, I ran out of battery and was only able to take pictures at the caseficio (cheesemaker). Please, when you shop, do not buy the stuff in the green can! It is a poor imposter!

Chillin' in the brine....
Over the weekend, two friends and I took a train to Cremona, about 1 1/2 hours away. It is located in the southern part of Lombardia. It is the birthplace and home of Antonio Stradivari (as in the famous violin.) There are still many violin workshops all over town. It is also home to the second highest bell tower in Europe, which we were stupidly ambitious enough to climb. All 592 steps of it!
At the top...

Brunello

Because I have allowed 2 weeks to pass since the last post, I'm gonna break it up into 2 parts. Last weekend, a group of 9 of us rented cars and drove to Montalcino, a small wine town in southern Tuscany famous for its Brunello wine, considered by many to be the best wine in Italy. A preview event for the newly released vintage (2004) was held for 2 days. Only 2,000 tickets were avalable, mostly for professionals, but the school was able to procure some tickets for us for free. What? Endless Brunello for free? Yes, please! Unfortunatly we were only able to stay for only one night, but it was a fantastic trip! And even better, 2004 is considered to be the best vintage since '95. Lucky me!

Another newsworthy highlight was a school trip to Forlimpopoli, about 2 hours SW of Parma. The father of Italian cookery was born there (Pellegrino Artusi) and there is now a library, resturant, wine vault, and cooking school in his honor. Wendall Berry (a renowned American farmer-author) was giving a lecture, so we attended the lecture, and then enjoyed a lunch made from the 19th century recipes in Artusi's cookbook.

Cured Meat, and more cured meat

This last week, we spent three days on a cured meat stage. From about 9am till 6pm, we traveled in and around Parma visiting different aspects of cured meat, mostly prosciutto. Each day was super exhausting, but tons of fun! I think I had my fill of cured pork for a while. At least for a few days! Imagine, all of the prosciutto and salame you can eat, with hunks of parmigiano thrown in for good measure, all washed down with endless Lambrusco. Three days in a row.

Above, a visit to a cured meat school for a demonstration of typical processes.
Preparing for a visit to an extensive pig farm...

Disgusting and something best forgotten if I ever want to really enjoy pork again!

Slightly higher fashion at an industrial prosciutto factory

A LOT of prosciutto!!!

Week 4

It's hard to believe, but this week has marked a month into the program. The time is really flying by, and I'm sure it will only continue to accelerate with the commencement of the "stages" this next week (a fancy word for field trips). The highlight of last week was a honey tasting class. A "nomadic beekeeper" came to conduct the class and taught us just about everything there is to know about bees and honey. I have a new respect the this remarkable insect! And a new respect for great honey! After learning about the how and why, we tasted 9 different honeys that were beautifully prepared, sourced from all over Italy. My favorites were the lavender, dandelion, and sunflower honeys.


We tasted the honeys off of an art palette, because according to the "bee guy", honey is art. We were then instructed to coat the inside of the wine glasses filled with honey using the spoon to release the varying aromas. Practical and beautiful!


By the end of the class all of the girls were swooning. This guy had amazing passion for bees and honey. It was incredibly inspiring.

What I learned

I just thought that I would would share the most interesting thing that I learned this week, mostly because I need a distraction from the paper that I am half finished writing. In Food Technology, we started applying everything we have been learning about bacteria, spores, fungus, and food preservation to some concrete products. The class this week was on dairy.

There is a unique situation in Italy in that about 85% of the county in mountainous so there is relatively little room for grazing. Therefore, most dairy cows are raised in barns, and are fed silage (corn that has been held and fermented in silos). But there is a certain bacterial spore that is present in silage and when it is feed to the cows the spores travel to the mammary glands and are then present in the milk. When the milk is made into cheese, during the cheese making process, the spores are activated and while the cheese is aging, the active bacteria release gasses that create little holes throughout the cheese and can sometimes cause a wheel of cheese to blow-up. (I would like to see this happen!) The bacteria are harmless, and very interesting. However, the cows that produce the milk for Parmigiano Reggiano are not allowed to eat silage, therefore no spores in the cheese, and no holes (or "eyes" in industry terms). The very similar cheese, Grana Padano, is made from silage milk, but a natural enzyme is added during the cheese making process to keep the spores dormant. Grana Padano very similar but slightly cheaper than Parmigiano and is typically what you are served at Italian restaurant in the guise of Parmigiano. So next time you are buying real Parmigiano, here is one more reason to beleive that it is in fact the king of cheeses.