Giorno sei

Early start this morning to watch the beginning stages in the production of Parmigiano Reggiano.

Master cheese maker Marco starts his day by rolling the curd from cattle (kept in large vats) into giant balls. The local cattle enjoy a special diet of all natural greens which leads to the tangy rich flavor of the Parmigiano Reggiano. These giant balls are then transferred to the molds where they are slowly compressed over several days to emit most of their water. After the molds have been tightened like a notch on a belt, the now semi hardened wheels are then soaked in large baths of water and sea salt. From there, they are transported to a large warehouse where they are set to rest for a minimum of 20 Months and up to 36. But even after enduring the process, the cheese must be submitted to a panel of experts for tasting (terrible job) and approval before it can call itself true Parmigiano Reggiano. Like everything else we’ve seen so far, there are a lot of imposters so buyers beware.

After our brief tour and a failed attempt at importing 10 Wheels (300 Kilos) of cheese I began my hunt for Romano Levi Grappa. RL, recently passed away, so his Grappa is not so easy to come by. It seems that every great restaurant we’ve come across has a collection of work. He specializes in making single batch Grappas, each infused directly in the bottle with herbs and spices and then each bottle has a hand written label. Later in Life, Levi became slightly mad and started to live the life a recluse. Never leaving his shop, he worked furiously on his life’s passion, Grappa. Many of his bottles are adorned with his child like stick figure drawings and incoherent sayings. He is likened to a Willy Wonka like character, mad, talented and full of mystery. After unsuccessfully begging and pleading restaurant owners to sell me a bottle, I was told of a long-standing shop in the town of Corregio that still had some of his earlier works. Success, I bought 3 of the 6 bottles they had left and will cherish them for a long time to come…

With mission accomplished, we returned back the Acetaia San Giaccomo for a cooking lesson/lunch with Andrea’s mother. Carla was the archetypal Italian grandmother. Svelt, sweet and according to Andrea, swift handed when she needed to be. Her old mangled hands kneaded the fresh dough with grace and speed. No mixer. Ours could achieve what she achieved in a short 20 minutes and speed aside, her pasta was textbook al dente. We were each given a chance to make some ravioli and sorry to say, that it wasn’t hard picking out which ones I had done, lopsided and a few grams larger than everyone elses. I know this because Carla busted out the scale to prove it. Of all the chef’s we’ve worked with so far and all the Michelin stars in the world, her food was best of all, and sitting around her modest kitchen table and eating her modest food is a reaffirmation as to why we’ve gone such distances to get here.

In addition to pasta, she showed us how to make “Step Mother’s Tounge,” a crispy flatbread, some pickled Gardineiri of vegetables in olive oil and for dessert, Parmigiano gelato with Apple Vinegar, Andrea’s Balsamic vinegar and shaved bitter chocolate. In one word, “unbelievable.”

Reluctant to leave, but excited for Florence, we departed on a short and picturesque 2 hour drive.

Our lovely and simple B&B is a stones throw from the Duomo so we have been able to spend the evening walking the old city. We have plans to dine tomorrow at Chibreao so tonight was up in the air. We walked around in circles trying to avoid the minefield of tourist traps that litter the city. We even encountered a 22€ Ceasar salad, I kid you not. We settled upon an Enoteca across the River Arno thinking it’s distance from the numerous landmarks would make it a safe bet. Our initial impression after hearing several other tables speaking English, was that we were duped but we found ourselves pleasantly surprised. Simple, yet relative to everything we’ve had so far. What did leave an impression was the fact that when asked where the industry people go for a bite, we received nothing but blank stares.

I can only explain this by hypothesizing that Italy doesn’t have a food culture the way we do, but instead, culture here is food. It’s such a small minority of people that appreciate food in the U.S. relatively speaking, that we band together. Here however, food is a birthright and they simply don’t have to think about it as much as we do…

Buena sera…
Arturo