Ciao Parma:)

I'll explain later...

Buon San Valentino!!!!! 

So I’ve had a great week.

Last Wednesday we had another Tandem event. At the Tandem event a week before I met this other Italian girl studying at the University of Perugia (I may or may not have already mentioned this). We both got to talking about how we absolutely loved foreign foods.  I told her about how I really missed Asian cuisine (and CHIPOLTLE, but that’s another story…) and how I searched high and how and haven’t been able to find any restaurant in Perugia that came close to this-turns out there is. So this past week at Tandem I met up with her and her friends and we went to this place that was in walking distance (ok, maybe I didn’t search that hard). The meal was ok, nothing special- I got a veggie lo mein of some kind (even though on the menu it was listed as spaghetti).   But since I haven’t had any kind of Asian cookery for the past two months anything similar to a freakin’ Panda Express was welcomed.

Don’t get me wrong though, I LOVE the food here- as you have probably already been able to figure out from my previous entries (I mean, I’m in a “study of foods” class…). Just this past Monday, I had one of the best eggplant parmesans I have ever had the pleasure of tasting- but we’ll get to that later.

On Thursday, I didn’t do too much of anything noteworthy. I went over to my friend’s apartment to have dinner (I didn’t do anything too crazy- we had to get up before the crack of dawn the next morning). My apartment and the guys’ apartment kind of have this thing where we switch off making dinner for each other. Except, we brought over dinner and cooked- I’m starting to think we’re getting gypped out of this deal (ok, to be honest, Julia is the one doing most of the cooking, but I helped buy the food!).

Snowy mountains

On Friday, like I previously mentioned, we got up at the earliest hour I might have been up in Italy (like 6:30!!) to get on the bus for Parma- another foods fieldtrip- except this one was overnight! It was around a 4 hour bus ride, but the views were really cool. It was snowing like crazy, but we passed through the Apennine Mountains on our journey, which made the scenery quite majestic. It also helped that I was listening to some really cool European electronic music (some credit goes to my brother Joe for this) so I felt extra cool.

When we got there we immediately went into the Salumificio “La Perla.” It was this famous prosciutto (and other pork-related meats) factory. We got a tour of it, pig legs and all. I thought it was really cool and interesting, but the smell of the place was a little unbearable (im a little pathetic when it comes to certain smells, especially in this context). I tried to relate this to the vegetarians of the group, but they were taking it like champs. But other than that I enjoyed learning about the whole process.

Oh hey pig legs....

Our tour guide teaching us about the process

The pig legs are everywhere!

After that slightly queasy experience, we had lunch! Guess what we were having? You guessed it. Lots of prosciutto. We arrived to a long table with individual plates covered with different kinds of prosciutto. I sat down still feeling sickly from the tour. We were all reflecting about how hard it would be to eat this. Yea, turns out that wasn’t the case at all. It was sooo good. If you are ever in the area, I would recommend the prosciutto (just try not to go to the factory directly before or after you eat though…  but I guess it doesn’t matter that much haha). We also had this ravioli covered in parmesan cheese. Ughhhh soooo amazing.  Especially since this cheese came from Parma. Now you might be wondering, ok Emily, if you are in PARMA why aren’t you going to a parmesan cheese factory?! Not to worry my readers, that will come soon.

Literal plates of meat

Everyone with their plate

Very good!

But after that we got to our hotel and had free time for the rest of the day.  So we passed out for a good three hours (we got up early ok??). Later that night we hopped on the public bus to Piazza Garibaldi- the center of town to look for a place to eat.  We heard about this one pizza place, so we went in, but were turned down right away because they were full (despite seeing a few suspiciously open tables…). We walked around (the shady areas of Parma) for a while and decided to try that place again. Shot down…again. So we walked around a little more looking for any place that resembled a restaurant (you’d think there would be more in Parma of all places) until we finally settled upon this pretty good pizza place.
 Julia and split our pizza's. So i had half pear Gorgonzola/ half eggplant with paramasan cheese. 

The next day we rose at ANOTHER ungodly hour. But it was worth it, because we headed straight to the Parmesan Cheese Cooperative for a tour. There we had a dress in a plastic overcoat, hat and booties. We looked great (or as my friend Michelle accurately described as ‘Dentist hotdog vendors’). We got to watch the cheese being made (I have a few videos that I can e-mail you if you are really interested) and learned all about parmesan cheese and the hierarchy in the factory (there is only one “Cheese Master”).  We also learned that there was lot of drama (the cheese master was almost kidnapped!), they definitely take their cheese seriously. We later got to try free samples. Ugh it was just, wow. I feel like I am now a pretentious parmesan cheese snob. 

Dentist Hotdog vendor thugz

Everyone at the tour

Making the cheese

Yup- that's all cheese. You jealous?

Everyone was pretty hungry after....

 After that we got back on the bus to depart for Modena- where Acetaia Villa Dan Donino- the Balsamic Vinegar  Cooperative was. Turns out I have also become a pretentious balsamic vinegar snob.  We got to try many samples. This stuff was unlike any other balsamic vinegar I’ve had before. In my foods class I learned that most people do not spend enough money on balsamic vinegar- so we are so used to the really thin stuff. But this substance was so good- you could put it on your ice cream! And so we did. The man who gave us a tour brought out his wife’s homemade gelato and put a few drops of this delicious concoction on it. YUM! I had to buy a bottle. I’m kinda scared to use it though, it’s so precious. After that we hopped back on the bus and headed back to Perugia.

The 'extra-vecchio'. The good stuff that's at least 30 years old. 

Sampling...yum.

On gelato???!! Oh yes, on gelato :)

The rest of the weekend was pretty low-key. On Monday evening a select few (a few of us won a e-mail contest) went to dinner at this awesome restaurant with Simon. There I had the best eggplant parmesan I might ever have in my life. It was this really small dish with a few slices of eggplant (they think the word “eggplant” is really funny here, the Italian word is “melanzane”- much more classy). It was a really good time.

Nothing too noteworthy has happened since then. So I will leave you now.

Happy Birthday to my Dad! And shout out to everyone else who is still reading my blog.

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Saluto i miei amici belli, fino alla prossima volta :)

Emilia