Living Like A Local In Blogville

Emilia-Romagna

As a chef, to travel to the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy is something special. Widely considered the culinary capital of Italy it is the birth place of world famous foods like Parmigiano cheese, prosciutto di Parma and balsamic vinegar to name just a few. Dishes like lasagna, tortellini in brodo or the quintessential tagliatelle al ragu all hail from this sometimes overlooked corner of Italy.

Blogville

So imagine our delight when ACNM was accepted by the Emilia Romagna tourism board to take part in a project called “Blogville”. The idea behind Blogville is to live like a local in two of Emilia Romagna’s most loved cities, Bologna and Rimini. The Blogville apartment, located in the centre of Bologna, was our first stop where we would share accommodations with four other bloggers who would all convey their take on beautiful Bologna.

Regional goodies

To get our taste buds in gear, a host of regional goodies awaited us in the Blogville kitchen, fresh tortellini, chunks of Parmesan, olive oil, mortadella, prosciutto, arborio rice and of course a few bottles of regional wine, Sangiovese and Pignoletto frizzante. As nice as our accommodations were, the real fun was waiting for us on the streets of the city. Predictably our first destination would be via Rizzoli, off of Piazza Maggiore, this is the famous market street of Bologna. A narrow crowded street filled with stalls selling locally grown produce and vegetables interspersed with shops crammed with everything from cheese and meats to fish and poultry.

Incredible selection

The selection was incredible, wild strawberries, gigantic asparagus, ruby red cherries all bursting with flavour and colour.  The fishmonger had more varieties of fish than any aquarium we had ever visited from tiny sardines that could be fried and eaten whole to an eight-foot-long shark nestled into the ice among the crates of other seafood.

Our initial visit was an opportunity to note what was available to us for the closing dinner of Blogville house Bologna which ACNM had agreed to cook.

Endless porticos

Leaving the market we continued to walk the seemingly endless porticos along the streets of the old town. Porticos are the dominant architectural feature of Bologna with 38 kilometres of them lining the streets.

A person on horseback

In fact, when constructing a new building in Bologna, it was mandatory to have a portico covering the sidewalk and it had to be high enough to accommodate a person on horseback.

Da Cesari

We continued exploring small alleys and ornate churches, taking in the wonderful patina of the architecture and finally arrived back at the apartment where the other bloggers were waiting for us to go out for dinner as a group. The decision was made to eat at a well-recommended restaurant called Da Cesari that lived up to its reputation.

Dishes that impressed

Among some of the dishes that impressed were market fresh asparagus with an egg sauce, rabbit tortellini with smoked goat cheese and a sublime panna cotta that started a minor panna cotta obsession with some of the other bloggers. It was a fantastic meal and we were truly living like locals, lingering at the table, drinking, talking and eating until we were the last customers to leave.

Open bus tour

The next day we took in some local activities including the hour long open bus tour around the city. It was a good way to see the lay of the land and learn some history of the region.

Trattoria Mariposa

While resting in the beautiful Piazza Maggiore, we struck up a conversation with a couple of young American students who were attending Bologna university. Asking them where we should go for a real local dining experience they recommended a restaurant called Trattoria Mariposa, buried deep in the back streets of the old town. Dinner time had arrived (8:30 pm) so we headed that way.

 Decorated in placemat drawings

The restaurant itself was very simple, decorated in placemat drawings made by their customers. Our waitress was extremely pleasant and spoke very good English, like most young Italians in large cities. As we so often do, we put ourselves in her hands to decide what we should eat, which she did not have any problem doing. To start we had the always pleasing combination of mozzarella and prosciutto.

Followed by two pasta dishes that we shared, Gramigna Salsiccia is thicker than spaghetti and curly, the creamy sausage sauce served atop was full of flavour and a bit spicy.

Made Food not War

Gargamelli, similar looking to penne but thinner and delicate was served with smoked bacon, rocket salad and black pepper, simple and delicious. I couldn’t help but comment to the waitress about her cool t-shirt, all black with the restaurant logo on the back and on the front in big white letters, the words “Make Food Not War”.

5.9 on the Richter scale

The morning of the Blogville (Bologna) closing party we awoke to an earthquake clocking 5.9 on the Richter scale. It shook the apartment pretty hard and rocked the church bells enough to make them ring throughout town. The mood soon turned from celebratory to serious as the news started rolling in about the damage and loss of life the quake left in its path. Fifteen dead, and much devastation in the factories, churches and infrastructure meant another blow to the country’s already suffering economy.  

300 000 wheels of Parmigiano

It was reported that up to 300 000 wheels of Parmigiano cheese and many priceless barrels of age-old balsamic vinegar were lost, being rocked off their shelves and smashed. Despite the quake, we decided to carry on with our dinner but in a much less celebratory way. After a very interesting class about Italian culture given to us in the apartment by a local professor from the University of Bologna, we sat down to a risotto dinner.

Together and safe

Made with incredibly fresh asparagus, local stripped zucchini, oven roasted onions and truffle salsa that we picked up from the market in the morning and finished with a generous amount of butter and Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, a wonderful combination that paired together beautifully with a local Sangiovese wine. Ending with a homemade parmesan gelato, served with an aged balsamic and local cherries (too adventurous for most) and some more of the incredible Panna Cotta from Da Cesari. It wasn’t the celebration that we had planned but with the thoughts of those who lost their lives or livelihoods we toasted the Blogville project and the wonderful people of Emilia Romagna, happy to be together and safe.

* We were in Bologna as part of Blogville Emilia-Romagna for more information please visit their website. The opinions in this post are our own.

For information on the Modena area of Emilia-Romagna, consult Bacon is Magic’s Modena Food Guide.