Blogs from Parma, Emilia-Romagna, Italy, Europe

Our first day in Bologna saw us on the "Tasty-Bus", yes that was the actual name. We had booked a full day of touring food producers, tasting their goods and buying some for Rupert and Pauline when we go to Berlin. Today was an early start we had to be in Parma by 8:45, over 1 hours drive from our accommodation. Our fist stop was to an artisan cheese factory to watch the final stages of Parmigiano-Reggiano being made, tasting the young kurds, and then a tasting of 12 month, 24 month, 36 month, and 48 month Parmigiano-Reggiano, we love the 36 month cheese is wonderful to just eat this in chunks. Next we ventured into the mountains to a family run Parma Ham factory and curing house, the father originally started the business, and has ... read more

After a wonderful morning walk around the city of Genoa to view the 1900’s architecture we are on the road to Parma and this is only with 3 wrong turns. After travelling through tunnels to cross the mountain range we have now reached the long straight roads with large flat farm land all round. We can see many very large farm house with large barns for the storage of the cows (still no animals out in the paddocks). Parma is the home of Parmesan Cheese, Parma Ham and Lambrusco wine, three of our favourite food groups. This is a University town but seemed very quiet for a University campus. While walking around the town this afternoon came across a Food and Beer festival so we did some sampling. For dinner tonight we had a bottle of ... read more

DAY 7 - Wednesday John felt guilty about skipping school so he went to school with the students. The focus this day was a tasting lecture, including traditional Italian cheeses, cured meats and wine. Nothing new for Cook Street students but hearing it all from a different voice in a fantastic place always puts new life into a subject. The tasting examples where amazing, especially the lardo; pork fat cured in spices and local salt. John has made this at the school, but here in this environment it seems to have more sex appeal. Marleah spent the morning sleeping in, lounging around the room, taking a bath and then around 1:00 walked down to the Barilla Center to meet John for lunch. It's about a 15 minute walk, the sun is shining but the wind is ... read more

We have been enjoying one of the better “foodie” areas of Italy around Bologna and Parma. As yet this area isn’t on everyone’s itinerary but well worth visiting. One of the highlights was our visit to Bologna which has stunning arcades, arched walkways right through the city centre. Think: kilometres of buildings with covered walkways. It did have an important church, San Stefano, with 7 inner connected chapels. Architecturally, very interesting. However, it was the crowded laneways with delightful little restaurants and delis which really were fun. We snacked on, perhaps an underestimation, ham, fresh ricotta cheese and fig jam! A great combination especially with a glass of red wine to wash it down. We were staying in the hills about 45 minutes from Bologna and were treated to a visit to the local Parmigiano Reggiano ... read more

Day 17, Thursday, May 29 See the pictures from the previous blog, Jim jumped the gun on posting the pictures from our day, he was on a meat and cheese high! This is our first full day in the area and it has been reserved for a full-day food tour to see how Parmesan cheese, prosciutto, and balsamic vinegar is made. The email we had received advised us to meet our personal guide at a restaurant just off the Autostrada in Parma but the instructions were not very clear so we left a little early just in case. There are three exits for Parma and our instructions were to exit off the Autostrada in Parma and look for a particular restaurant and wait in the parking lot for our guide. We decided to split the different ... read more