Our big Foodie Trip

 

For all of our travels in Italy, we still hadn’t done a “Foodie Trip”; we decided that the time had come to rectify that. The kids were out of school last Thursday and Friday with another holiday on the following Wednesday, so we could take a week long vacation while only taking them out of school for 2 days.

On Thursday, we drove up to a little city called Carpi, right outside of Modena, and checked into the hotel. After a few hours on the road, we didn’t feel like doing much, so we just had dinner in the restaurant at the hotel.

Friday we went to Osteria di Rubbiara for lunch. Anthony Bourdain had visited this restaurant for his show “No Reservations”, and raved about the food and the balsamic vinegar. They make their own balsamic vinegar on site, and have a store where you can give buy some of their products. We had lunch reservations for 12:30, but had nothing going on before then, so we got there at 11:45 or so, and spent some time in their store area.

Now, I have to take a break, and tell you about Balsamic Vinegar (with a capital B and V). The crap you can buy in the states (and at the supermarkets here) is technically balsamic vinegar, in the same way that that old 11 inch black and white TV with rabbit ears (with the tin-foil wrapped around them) and a scratchy mono speaker is technically a TV; once you’ve watched a movie in HD on a 53 inch LED with Dolby 7.1 Surround Sound, you look at that 11 inch artifact and think to yourself “Wow, what a piece of crap that thing is. Why did I ever think that was cool?”

There are a couple of different products that people are thinking of when they talk about balsamic vinegar:

Traditional Balsamic Vinegar (from Modena) was originally mentioned in documents dating back to the 12th century. It’s created by cooking down a certain type of grape, and reducing it by about 50% to a product called “must”. The must is stored in a series of 5 or 6 decreasingly sized barrels (referred to collectively as a “battery”) for a period of time. The period of time is one of the determining factors of the flavor of the finished product, with longer aging periods thickening and concentrating the vinegar (due to evaporation). When it’s time to bottle the vinegar, only 50% is taken out of the smallest barrel, then that barrel  is refilled from the next largest barrel, which is filled from the next largest barrel and so on, with the largest barrel of the battery being refreshed with a new batch of must. The types of woods used in the different barrels in the battery are thought to give different batches of vinegar different taste. The longer the vinegar has been aged, the more complex the flavor, and the higher the price (due to labor costs of the years of tending to the battery and additional concentration and maturation of the flavors in the product). Traditional Balsamic Vinegar is typically a family business, with each generation of males having a battery created and named for them when they’re born. At this place, the names of their products were: Cesare, Claudio, Giuseppe II, Umberto, and Italo. Cesare’s was the oldest vinegar that they had available for sale (at 230 Euros a bottle), and he was responsible for saving the family’s livelihood during the bombings of World War II, by moving the existing batteries to a safer location during air raids by Allied bombers. At weddings, one of the common traditions is for the guests to receive a small vial of the groom’s vinegar as a present. Subsequent generations continue maintenance on the batteries of their predecessors, allowing them to continue selling the older products for increasingly higher prices as they continue to age.

The name “Traditional Balsamic Vinegar” is protected by the Italian government and the European Union, to insure that only products which are produced in this specific way can be labeled with this phrase, insuring the quality of the TBV label.

The balsamic vinegar that’s readily available in the states (and in the supermarkets here) contains coloring and flavoring that’s been added to the must, and does not have the stringent aging requirements as the traditional product. It’s just got a hint of what real Balsamic Vinegar should taste like, with none of the viscosity, or layers of flavor complexity. This is often referred to as “industrial” or “condiment” balsamic vinegar. The name of this product is also protected by the Italian government and the EU, but the requirements aren’t as strict for this “Balsamic Vinegar of Modena”.

The place we went to sold both types of vinegar, with some of the Traditional having ages in the 60+ year range. They gave us tastes of 5 different product lines, with each one being thicker, with more complexity of flavor. By the end, Becca and I were gasping at each taste, overloaded with the flavors. We bought some vinegar (both kinds) in their store, then were seated for lunch. The head of the family (Italo, from the family line above) spoke absolutely no English, and had little interest in our pigeon Italian (in a good-natured way). He brought wine, water, and food. Lots of food. 4 or 5 courses of food. We didn’t order anything except water and wine – he selected every course for us, with no input from us. There were a couple of times when we hadn’t quite finished off a course, and he would playfully toss the remaining food onto my plate, making it quite clear that I was personally responsible for cleaning the serving platter. After lunch, we happened to meet Giuseppe III as we waddled back through the store on the way out. He was the same gentleman who talked with Anthony Bourdain on camera for the show, and he was fluent in English. He told us that his father (Italo) mentioned that we’d purchased a few bottles of vinegar, and told Giuseppe that he should offer to give us a tour. He offered, we gladly accepted.

He showed us the kettles where they cook down the must while he explained the process to us, then he took us up to show us where the batteries were stored. There weren’t very many, only about 8-10 batteries (if that) – not as many as I was expecting. He walked us through the whole process, and showed us all of the different batteries, all named after his male ancestors. He told us about the different kinds of woods used in the barrels that his family used, and explained to us that the different sequences of the woods was what gave each line it’s individual taste.  He explained how vinegar making is his family’s heritage, and the respect that he had for both the work that his relatives had done, and for the process itself. It was a very cool experience, and we remembered the passion that he had for his art later in the trip too (you’ll see it when it comes by).

After lunch, we drove a couple of hours up to Nove, the ceramics place outside of Vicenza (the same place we visited last White Week, when we went to Venice). We stocked up on more ceramic platters, serving bowls… pretty cool place, but it’s not balsamic vinegar… no need for Part II of War and Peace in this section. Dinner was at the Burger King at the base. Yeah, really.

Saturday, we had nothing planned, so we decided to go to Milan, about an hour and a half up the road. We decided to park at a metro station in the suburbs and take the metro in, and we had a hard time finding the parking lot, even with the help of the GPS. Took us a while to find it, but we managed (after making a couple of loops). We rode the metro to the Doumo stop, and went into the Duomo. It’s the fifth largest cathedral in the world (the largest in Italy), took 500 years to complete, and at the time it was built, it was large enough for Milan’s entire population (40,000) to worship at the same time. It was raining the whole time, but we went up on the roof anyway, pretty cool walking around up there with all the gargoyles – you would be able to see all of Milan if it was clear. It wasn’t and we couldn’t. Entire books have been written about the Duomo, and I’m not going to go on and on about it. We’ve got more vinegar to get to!

But first, The Last Supper. We were able to get tickets for an after hours showing of The Last Supper, and we met up with the rest of the group (about 30 people) and the guide at the entrance to the church where the painting is. The guide told us all about the history of Da Vinci and the painting, including some of the political issues that were going around at the time. One story he related to us is that when Leonardo wanted to move to Milan, he sent a letter to the Duke, and asked for a job. He gave the Duke a list of all the things that he could do for him (and for the city of Milan), including engineering projects, canals, bridges, weapons; at the end of the list, Leonardo put “If nothing else is available, I’d could even paint for you!”

Everybody’s seen a rendition of the painting, so I’m not going to give a deep artistic critique of it; it was just really cool to be able to see in person something that I’ve only seen in pictures, movies, or books. The painting is weathered, faded, parts of it have been irreparably damaged by half-hearted attempts at restoration – and it’s absolutely ‘take your breath away’ magnificent. If you have an opportunity, it’s a once in a lifetime experience. If you have an opportunity to see it after hours, you should do it; we got to spend 30 minutes with the painting – tickets during the day only get you 15 minutes in there.

On Sunday, we took the kids to Gardaland, Italy’s answer to Disney. It seems small by American standards, but there were plenty of roller coasters, and for (possibly) the first time, everyone in our family was able to ride everything, including one that Becca and I weren’t sure Cori would live through. You know I don’t do in-line images very often, but this one’s worth it.

 

(The picture is from Wikipedia. There, I included my source.)

See the normal looking roller coaster? Yeah, Cori was fine on that one and rode it 2 additional times by herself. Now, see the messed up looking one in the middle? It’s the brown/maroon one. Yeah, that’s the one that we were pretty certain was going to make Palmer an only child again. Cori was tall enough for the ride, but the restraints didn’t come all the way down to her shoulders, and were quite loose over her collarbones. To the point where she was able to twist her shoulders out from between the restraints to turn around and look at us. The kids were sitting together in the front of the 4 seat car, the parents in the back. The parents didn’t enjoy this particular ride at all.

All the other rides were fine, and after we’d ridden all of the roller coasters, we let the kids ride on anything they wanted to (except the death trap shown above), and we rode with them occasionally, but they were able to ride them by themselves. Our babies are growing up!

Some friends of ours in Rome put us in touch with some friends of theirs in Modena, and arranged some local touristy stuff for us for Monday:

We met up with the Modena friends at a social club they’re affiliated with. Well, I’m not certain it’s just a social club. I don’t think there’s an equivalent organization in America. It was a cross between a social club, community center, civic organization, sports club; the organization dated back to 1905, and they gave us a copy of their Centennial Celebration yearbook when we left. It talks about all of their accomplishments, all their sporting teams, their club history.

We had some coffee with them, then loaded into their bus and drove across town to the headquarters of Maserati. The kids weren’t able to go on the tour with us, but we tried to tell them all about it. They stayed out in the lobby with one of the guys in our group. He and his wife are expecting their first child in November, and he seemed to enjoy playing with ours (or he’s just a good actor!). The factory tour was pretty cool – the cars are all assembled by hand, using a “just in time” process; they put together the build list for each car, and all of the necessary parts are ordered from suppliers and received in time for each car to go through the build process. All the parts are collected on trollies that travel with the car from the beginning; the painted body shell comes in, and is carried through the assembly process by a big grabber mounted on a conveyor belt. The shell and the trollies go around the factory together, about 40 feet at a time. The cars stay at one position for 22 minutes, so one team of techs has 22 minutes to accomplish their tasks, whether that’s putting in the brake lines, running electrical cables, etc. The cars go through (I think) 24 stations for just the assembly, not counting the dash and interior. Those are 2 additional assembly lines that they go through, at around 20 minutes per station, but I don’t remember how many stations.

Every car is driven by a professional tester in and around Modena (including on the highway) for around 50 miles after being assembled, and these miles are accounted for when the car is delivered – no Chrysler mileage tricks here!

After the Maserati factory, we had a lunch with typical Modena dishes, with way too much food, too many courses. At least there wasn’t a 70 year old man forcing me to clean the plates this time… at this lunch, it was different kinds of alcohol. There were two guys in our group who were quite insistent that we should drink some of each type of liquor presented, and some of the Italian liquors are quite… potent, and… unique flavors (including walnut).

After lunch, we went to another vinegar place. You remember how I told you up in the Duomo section that we had more vinegar to get to?

Our friends from Modena took us to a place that’s run by a consortium of vinegar producers (rather than a single family). The gentleman who gave us a tour had a quite different view of vinegar than Giuseppe. His take on the process was very scientific, and his learned opinion was that TBV’s can be graded scientifically, only by verifiable factors such as viscosity, and color. He said that the type of wood used in the casks was completely immaterial to the whole process, and that scientifically, the taste of the vinegars of certain years was determined by external factors, chiefly the weather (the amount of heat and cold the grapes are exposed to determines the amount of sugar contained in them). Quite a difference between his viewpoint and Giuseppe’s viewpoint. While I have nothing negative to say about the vinegar from the consortium, I think the vinegar from the family tasted a bit better. To be honest, that’s probably completely in my head, and the respect and caring that went into the vinegar at the restaurant has probably colored my judgment a bit.

Next stop was a cheese factory – you probably saw a picture of this on Becca’s Facebook. We didn’t get any special sort of a tour here, except for being able to walk into the cheese warehouse. That was pretty cool, seeing hundreds of wheels of parmesan cheese, weighing around 80 pounds a piece… We did get to see the cows, at least 3 pens of them (the calves, the expectant mothers, the milking cows). They weren’t doing tricks or anything, just standing around mooing and eating hay.

There was a private car museum at the farm too, and that was pretty cool. We’ll post pictures at some point, but there were probably 45-50 cars, and about that many motorcycles too. Lots of Maseratis, some Mercedes coupes, a Ferrari or two, a 1931 Cadillac Pope-Mobile, a couple of Harley-Davidson motorcycles from WWII, and a Fiat tractor driven by Mussolini. There were some race cars there too, from different series’ of GT races, one from Le Mans.

The next day (Tuesday), we managed to get into the Ducati factory in Bologna for a tour, and the kids were able to come with us for this one. The bikes are put together in a similar fashion as Maseratis, with all of the parts coming together at the beginning, and workers getting a specific amount of time to complete their specific task before the bike moves further down the line. We got to see some of their testing procedures, and saw a couple of bikes while they were on the dynos at the end of assembly.

We didn’t see anything else in Bologna, and went straight back to the hotel, then left bright and early the next morning, in time to pick up the dog a day ahead of time.

That’s all for now… keep an eye out for the next update!