Dishing out Italy

On a food trip to Italy, we find cheese that reminds us of body parts, discover the beauty of olive oil, and see what dante's descendants are up to these days

Mumbai claims Italian amongst its favourite things to eat. But you can count the number of Italian restaurants on one hand and the memorable from amongst those on two fingers. Maybe it's all that Italian we think we're cooking at home: paneer pizza and spaghetti alfredo (forget paneer pizza, even spaghetti alfredo is an American invention, not Italian, says a chef we know).

So when Italian food importers R R O Oomerbhoy plan a trip to Italy to sample real Italian food and learn how it's made, we go.

Our trip is to showcase the making of the stars of Italian foodu00a0 olive oil, pasta, cheese and wine. Just risotto is missingu00a0 but our curiosity about it is satiated back home in Mumbai. More on that later.

There is a case for being a touristu00a0 you see what makes a country proud, at one level. But if you want to know the people, you must break bread with them. Italians eat a lot of bread, from shapes as familiar as the morning's flaky croissant (with jam, cheese or Nutella, thank you) to another that looks like a goat's horns. The surprising thing is that in Italy, no matter how hard the bread is, it does not cut your gums like some Indian varieties do. This has to do with the countless types of flours available, we are told.

We first head to north Italy, where winters are cold and the people are hard to find. We are in Spoleto, where we look for signs pointing not to piazzas and churches but to people.

Combing olive trees

Spoleto is in Umbria the mountains are breathtaking, just like in Switzerland. Mists roll across the highways and the cold bites at you. Streets wind up and down but women wear short skirts, booted stilettos and hurry home from grocery shopping. A little outside Spoleto, olive oil makers Monini have a factory, a Culinary Center and a guest house. We spend the night here and smell olive oil in our dreams.

The next day, after coffee and croissant (nothing heavy or salty before 11.30 am, we are told), we comb olives loose from the low-hanging branches of olive trees. We grapple with a giant electric comb and enjoy the olives raining down on us. Later, we drink warm and thick olive oil, straight from the pipes, even before it has been filtered. It's rich and yellow-green but leaves our palates clean, and not greasy, a fact brought to our notice at the olive oil tasting session later.

Groups of six and more can stay at the Monini Culinary Center, take in a cooking class (the chef is entertaining and gregarious). We also learn to tell apart the queen of all flavours GranFruttato Extra Virginu00a0 from rancid olive oil. There is a method to tasting olive oilu00a0 suck in air along with the oil and chew the whole thing before spitting it out.

You'll also get a crash course on the health benefits of olive oil. We learn that what sells most in India is a type of olive oil called pomace. It's the cheapest but not fit for human consumption, they tell us everywhere. After they have extracted every drop of oil from the olives, a brown sludge is left. This is treated with chemicals to get pomace. Always bet on extra virgin instead.

We taste raw olives too. They come in light green and purple colours, with the light green being most bitter and vile. But these are the ones that are best for your heart.

The healthiest olive oil contains olives in colours progressing from light green to purple. The light green fruit has great antioxidant properties. It lowers bad cholesterol and increases good cholesterol like no other oil will do. "Olive oil is good for over-eating," we are told cheerily. That explains the generosity with which olive oil is poured over bread everywhere. Next stop, Parma in Emilia-Romagna.

Pasta machines

Parma is famous for its ham. However we are there to see Barilla's pasta making factory. And, it's time for another cooking class at Academia Barilla. We also get to eat what we cook and some of it is good. Disaster strikes when too much pumpkin goes into the risotto, which makes it sweet. Like dessert.

The pasta factory is more exciting. Magnificent machines chomp away at pasta dough, cutting it into long and short shapes of pasta. Dough is pulled and sliced and dried and boxed. And it's called pasta at the end of it all. There are over a hundred shapes of pasta in Italy, about 30 of which are available in India. By the time we leave Italy, we've shopped for many kilos worth of dry pasta dyed green and red with spinach and beetroot. And, there is spaghetti with truffle embedded and more spaghetti with garlic and pepperoncino.

Die-hard shopaholics, we buy more food products and about three types of pesto at Academia Barilla. It's late at night by the time we finish, and a midnight gelato beckons. But we stop long enough to notice a sign at the Academia advertising food experience courses. Novices and experienced foodies can do courses varying in lengths from one or two days to two weeks. There are lunch and dinner visits to the countryside and lots of homestyle cooking experiences. The Academia gives us a bit of a lecture on the regional aspect of Italian food.
u00a0
Makes us examine our food more closely. What are we eating? Is it Sicilian, Tuscan, Veneto?
Each shape of pasta goes best with a particular sauce and preparation and is timed to work with seasonal produce. We swear to do our homework before making the next pasta, but our attempts to find an Italian recipe book in English in Italy fail; none of the bookshops have heard of such a ridiculous thing. Next stop: Cremona and cheese and Verona and wine.

Wine and dante

Ask any Italian from Verona about Masi and his hand will instinctively go to his heart as he sighs in pleasure. Masi's Amarone wines are made with a special method of drying and double fermentation. They are smooth and expensive. We see their drying and storage facilities and walk past barrels of prize-winning wines. Then, there is a treat in store.

We are taken to the farm of Serego Alighieri. Alighieri. As in Dante. His son Pietro bought this farm. We are told it was from the money Dante made from selling his first poem but there may be more romance to that story than truth. But Dante did visit here and his descendants are still around. Serego Alighieri makes wines, olive oils, jams and moreu2026 the property also has rooms you can stay in that overlook a farmland straight out of a Monet painting.

Studd up

The expansiveness makes us mellow. Nothing like some pungent cheese-in-the-making smell to slap us awake then. We go to a factory that makes Grana Padano and Provolone. It's like watching Will Studd's show on cheeses of the worldu00a0 pumpkin-shaped cheeses (also called mandarini) ferment in water, green and quiet, like alien pods waiting to hatch. Elsewhere, grana padano takes its time to mature.

We taste everything and also get an unexpected lesson in spice. From Cremona comes mostarda or mustard. A spicy jam-type compote, mostarda is made with mustard and fruit and accompanies cheese. You think you're Indian and know spice but you don't. We pick up six bottles of the stuff.

Au00a0song for juliet

Our journey ends on a Shakespearean note. We spend two nights in Verona. The courtyard that houses Juliet's balcony also has a newly-opened hotel, the Il Sogno di Giulietta. You could have a balcony overlooking Juliet's or, even better, one opening on to the street below for your Romeo to climb up on to. Every room has a jacuzzi tub you will need after all the hectic shopping at the piazzas.

Rates go from Euro 300 upwards but there really cannot be anything more romantic than this. After hours, when everyone has gone, the courtyard is empty. And Juliet's bronze statue stands in a corner, alone at last. The tourists have gone but the poetry remains.

We come home with pasta in our bags and get an invitation to eat at a risotto festival at a Mumbai hotel. Our journey continues. For more on that, turn the page.