While lounging in the hotel room on Wednesday, Glen looked up things to do in Bologna and found a food experience tour that looked interesting. Because we’ve had enough of walking around and looking at buildings – I had developed a blister – we booked it. At 6:50 Wednesday morning we were picked up from our hotel and so began a day of (more) indulgence.
it was a tour group so we knew there’d have to be interaction with others. It started off well enough. We met Paul and Chris from the UK – retirees – and Jenny and Alan from the US (Atlanta) – honeymooners – and then were taken out of Bologna, past all the cars going the opposite direction into the city to our first stop: a Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese factory.
The guide (and owner), Alessandro – an exuberant (aren’t they all?) and demonstrative Italian – met us there, while another two car loads of people showed up. There were more Brits, four more people from the US (both North and South Carolina) and a gay couple from South Africa. A group small enough to not be unwieldy, but large enough that it didn’t get awkward.
Introductions done, we entered the factory.
Making Parmigiano-Reggiano is Intensive Work
The factory produces 64 wheels of cheese every day (each wheel about 25 kg), 365 days a year. It’s run by about six people who get there at 4:30am and finish about 11am. They get milk from the local farmers twice a day, cook it, let it settle, plunge and break it, cook it again, let it settle, bring it up, separate it, put it in tubs, put it in salt water and put it in storage for at least one year.
The big thing here is getting the D.O.P. certification which means it’s certified Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. This means everything throughout the production comes from the region and has restrictions on methods and ingredients in the production. The only outside thing they’re allowed is sea salt from Sicily.
And to make Parmigiano-Reggiano you need to be within a certain distance, a member of the co-op and pay for certification blah blah blah. The protectionism struck me as incongruous with the free-market ethos of the EU, however, it’s doing something to keep production alive within the area. And of course there are plenty of people who want the ‘real deal’ and are willing to pay for it.
Having said that, parmigiano-reggiano is not a money-making exercise and they make most of their money from the ricotta that they produce after making the cheese. Go figure!
We saw all the steps and I never thought I’d be so interested in how cheese was made. The point was also made that there are no young people in the factory, no young people anywhere really, willing to do what is back-breaking work, either in the factory or out in the farms, so it’s going to be interesting (and devastating) when these cheesemakers are no longer able or willing to work. About a quarter, possibly less, of the process is automated, the rest involves some level of handiwork. Either the whole thing will have to be automated – same out in the farms – or we’re going to lose it.
After seeing the production, we then got to sample the cheese, first a table cheese (this is parmigiano-reggiano that doesn’t pass the D.O.P. standard and has a lot of imperfections in it), which was smooth, and then a three-or-six-year aged parmigiano-reggiano, which was hard, crunchy and delicious. We also had lambrusco wine, some pastries, some meat and fruit. After wandering around looking at cheese for an hour and not having had breakfast, this meal was well received.
Balsamic Vinegar di Modena, D.O.P.
Next stop was a balsamic vinegar producer. This was quite different from the cheese factory, in that it was set in a vineyard with a villa and a house that stored all the vinegar barrels. It was idyllic. Being September, the grapes were being picked as balsamic vinegar is only made once a year at this time. The grapes are freed of their stems, crushed and then cooked to produce the grape juice.
The juice is then poured into a large vinegar barrel, or if you’re starting a new ‘battery’ of barrels, you pour it into six different sized barrels, made from different types of wood. (Coopers still have work here though again, how many young people want to become coopers?) The barrels have a hole in the side that allows the gases to escape (and avoid fermentation…or aid fermentation?), however, the evaporation means that you need to take liquid from the next barrel up and replenish what’s been lost over the past year. You then refill from the bigger to the smaller until the smallest barrel has been sitting there for 12 years.
The producer can then take 10% (1 L) of vinegar out of the smallest barrel and go get it D.O.P. certified as balsamic vinegar di Modena. They can then charge 40 euros for it, which is a lot considering all the work that goes into it. A lot of people in the region have their own vinegar battery at home, establishing one when they have a daughter, and the battery is given away as her dowry. Our guide had one for each of his two children.
Large scale production of the good quality, proper stuff probably isn’t huge (which is why it can charge a higher price point) but the longer people are in it, the biggest their stocks and eventually they can make money off it. We saw the batteries in the house, including one barrel from 1512.
After learning about the process, we did a tasting. Starting with the I.G.P. version, which doesn’t require all ingredients to come from the area and can be produced in 6 years, we sampled that and learned that the I.G.P. and other variants will have cooked grape juice plus wine vinegar and other ingredients. D.O.P. only has cooked grape juice.
We tried the I.G.P., a condiment version and then the 12 and 25 years versions. Each different. Each serving its only purpose. The D.O.P. versions were definitely thicker, smoother and more syruppy. We then had them served on fresh ricotta and then ice-cream. We bought a few bottles when we left. Again, who would have thought balsamic vinegar would be so interesting?
Not for Those with a Queasy Stomach
Next stop: prosciutto factory with 22,000 pork legs hanging on the wall. Another D.O.P. production with other certifications (or lack there of thrown in). Prosciutto involves salting and drying over 14 months: 3 months in the cold (the stink in there made my stomach roll), 4 months upstairs to dry, 7 months downstairs to dry.
It all looked a bit weird and off-putting – though strangely for me I ate more prosciutto than Glen (when in Bologna?). It was good quality, shaved prosciutto but it was definitely a confronting experience. And that’s a lot of pigs who’ve lost their back legs and lives.
The D.O.P. stuff is a smaller market with better cared for livestock, while the rest of their production is for ‘international’, using pigs brought in live from other parts of Europe who live shitty lives and eat crap. Contrasted with all this were the larger legs that are being cured for local farm families who look after their pigs better. All spectrums here.
And Then It Was Time for Lunch
The cars then took us into the countryside to an organic winery called Corto d’Aibo. There we drank a whole lot of wine, both red and white, including a mix called meggiore which was a mix barbere, cabernet and merlot. The lunch was billed as “light”, with the quotation marks. We started with pasta, the another pasta, and then one more pasta.
Despite eating the prosciutto, I opted out of the pork, which was in most of the pasta dishes, and instead had a mushroom lasagna, a vegetarian tagliatelle and the truffle spaghetti (which Glen swapped for lasagna). All delicious pasta, all very filling. Then came the pork cheeks, the veal and the roast vegetables, followed with dessert (and a delicious tiramisu which even I loved because it’s almost lack of coffee flavour).
The food was delicious. We’d unfortunately sat ourselves next to the Honeymooners and the South African company, the other ‘young’ people on the group, but after comments made in the car during the drive, and the complete ignoring of us by the South Africans and subsequent ignorant and racist comments coming out of their mouths, we were not in a good spot. However, we struck up conversation with the North/South Carolinians who were travelling as a family and spent the time talking to them.
Much wine and a few hours later, we finished our lunch, poured ourselves into the cars and were driven back into Bologna. The drive back was pleasant enough until the conversation turns to civil unrest in America, immigration and integration. Briefly there was a sport discussion which would have been acceptable if they’d just stayed on that topic.
It soon became clear that Glen and I were the odd ones out and we held our tongues. Perhaps we shouldn’t have. Perhaps we should have questioned their beliefs, and the longer we were in the car the harder it was becoming to keep my mouth shut, but we said nothing and let it all out once they’d been dropped off.
Anyway, despite this, it had been a great day and we learnt so much, and ate so much. The vinegar I found the most interest (and ripe for a story) but was a bit disappointed to hear there were no arch rivalries between the vinegar producing families and that no one had burnt down another’s battery. The worst it gets is an annual competition (which I guess is a good thing).
Dinner? Really?
Glen had not drunk as much as me so he wasn’t as wiped out as me. We spent a couple of hours lying on the bed in the hotel, waiting for the food to digest. Hours passed with the light dying outside until finally we roused ourselves for another walk through Bologna.
We went west this time but the streets didn’t hold much interest and bordered on the ugly and threatening. We returned to the piazza and the restaurant we’d bypassed the first night. Neither of us was really all that hungry. I think I was dehydrated more than anything.
We sat and ordered a salad (for me) and tortellini in broth (for Glen), while using the restaurant’s wifi, which was much faster than that at the hotel. For dessert, we shared chocolate ice-cream. See? Barely anything?
Travels with Dan 
What do you say, eh?