regions of Italy: emilia romagna

bologna, parma, modena

After exploring the southern regions of Campania and Puglia, as well as venturing to Umbria to douse myself in oil and truffles, I finally went to THE FOOD CAPITAL of Italy: Emilia-Romagna.

Unfortunately I arrived to the capital of Bologna with withered tastebuds, still recovering from Covid. I wore a mask and only went to outside food markets to eat. It’s hard to believe that it’s been over three years since the pandemic started. Yes, we’ve stayed indoors, yes, we’ve gotten our vaccines, but three years later and we’re still dealing with this mess. In fact, I realized during this bout of Covid that for long time, I really internalized that I had the power to kill someone by moving about the world. That’s really heavy. Thinking about getting someone else ill, like a baby, a person with a chronic illness, or an elderly person, makes me feel incredibly uneasy. I tried to take deep breaths and give myself simple comforts to release the nagging fears.

Luckily, simply walking about this town was a visual delight. This is a true city of the north. As I’ve written, the north and the south of Italy were only very recently one country, and there are huge differences between them and the regions, despite only being a few hours away. It felt very regal, very stately, and very impressive. I loved all the beautiful signage and brick buildings.

I took a day trip to Parma with friends, the city known for Parmesano Reggiano, a nutty local cheese. We went to a parmesan cheese artisanal production room, which I learned is heavily controlled by the parmesan quality boards know as the “Parmigiano Reggiano Consortium”. This consortium specifies, with extreme precision, each step you must follow to gain a quality label on your parmesan. The “DOP” label, as well as the date of production, will be stamped on the rind of the cheese. There are also little tricks so that you can tell your parmesan is good quality: the color (dark and light shades), the appearance of crystals, as well as the age. Spending the day watching the production, I was incredibly impressed by the slow, manual process, like lovingly stirring your parmesan with a giant mixing spoon and wooden handle. I was also impressed by the ways they try to sustainably conserve everything used in the production.

My favorite part was how each giant wheel of parmesan takes a salty little bath for a few weeks to draw the moisture out of the cheese. There is so much thought and effort that goes into a single hunk of parm. Can you imagine eating something, knowing how thoughtful every inch of production has been? What a treasure to eat something so much history and work has gone into, and Americans are over here eating the green stuff. When we were trying to figure out how much cheese to buy, our host told us that he eats parmesan every day, multiple times a day, and puts in on top of all his food or eats it by itself as a snack. Of course.

Another thing they make in Emilia Romana is proscuitto and bologna. I apologize in advance to all the vegetarian readers of the blog, but this was really good. It was served on lightly fried dough, and the saltiness shone through. I “stumbled upon” an outdoor food festival in Modena, where the people watching was other worldly. I love how Italian people always have the thickest tweed, the sharpest leather jackets, the most modern glasses. And food festivals here are unlike the rushed, crowded gang of liquor’ed up Americans clanging for a fried oreo - despite the general disorganized nature of Italian society the food festivals defy logic and suddenly arrange themselves in beautifully lined stalls with queues, ticket numbers, and elegant cutlery.

Finally, let’s talk about the pasta shapes up here. Each region loves to trick me with its unique names and shapes. Here in Bologna they have tortellini in brodo, not to be confused with tortelloni, which look just like tortellini and I’m not sure the difference. And, lasagna is also a specialty of Emilia Romagna.

One night, I went to a butcher shop to get some prepared foods to eat at home. I asked for what I thought looked like a lasagna. “No, non e lasagna!” the butcher screamed at me. When I asked what it was, he said it was eggplant parmesan. I said that it’s ok, I’ll still take it. He looked at me deep in the eyes, and once again repeated with a force, “Non e lasagna!” OK, ho capito! This seriousness with which Italians take their food is something I’ve never seen before in another country. Luckily, I’m here to eat.