Parma for Cheese, Prosciutto, and Balsamic (may combine if you please!)

 President's Day Long weekend presented itself with our first real opportunity to travel! We checked out our new best friend SkyScanner to see if there were any of those ultra amazing €25 tickets to literally anywhere. There weren't so instead we ventured north via train to Parma Italy in the Emilia Romagna region. 

   

If your family is anything like our families, you're regularly on the look out for Parm prosciutto at Costco. This is a go to addition to even the most basic charcuterie boards, awesome elevation to asparagus sides, and in the Snider house, a wonderful dinner when paired with some crackers and cheese! This delight comes from the city of Parma! Since Parma is also associated with the famous parmigiano reggiano and balsamic vinegar it seemed like an easy way to spend a four day weekend: basically just eating:)

Trains make for good blogging!

With the amount of expenses the Navy expects us to carry before reimbursement we've been really kicking ourselves for not getting a high rewards travel credit card. When you're from Alaska you use the Bank of American Alaska Airlines card. Exclusively. Looking at you Alaska family 👀 Post COVID we have a fair number of miles saved up - useful any emergency trips home - but apparently also useful for booking a miles rewards hotel in Parma! Score! After the shuttle-to-the-bus-to-the-train combo that is living on Support Site and a fast train through Rome, Florence, and Bologna we arrived in Parma in about 5 hours! We walked about 6 miles each day but the highlights were our prearranged food adventures. While we booked through various websites, it turns out that most Parma tours are run by one company called ParmaLook.

Definitely not in Naples anymore. There are dedicated pedestrian and cycle lanes over the Naples "we all share the road, and sidewalks, and lane(s)"

We learned a lot about the many regulations that Italians place on products that are of true Italian origins. These are essentially equivalent to trademark laws. If you're going to label something as parmigiano reggiano, parm ham, or balsamico there are very specific rules, regulations, inspections, and verifications that must be met before getting the literal federal stamp of approval on the product. There are also different levels of protection. 

• PDO = Protected Designation of Origin (the highest of standards)
• PGI = Protected Geographic Indication

* Italian wine has similar labels with slight variations. We are still figuring those out*

Parmigiano Reggiano @ Casalbaroncolo:

Basically all you could eat cheese from right there! 22 and 36 month old premium! 

First, it's important to know - it's important to Italians that you know - that parmigiano reggiano is NOT parmesan cheese. After our visit last year I did notice the difference between the wedge of parmesan and the wedge of parmigiano reggiano (again at Costco🤭). I'm not sure if I can taste the difference yet but after being immersed in the production of parmigiano reggiano I can appreciate the details. We didn't arrive early enough to watch the cow milking process, because who wants to start a tour at 4a, but we did get to watch the production of a cheese wheel and tour the cheese waiting to mature before getting to sample various ages of the parmigiano reggiano! 

Some wheels just starting their aging process and some 
are at a very aged 86 months!

The cheese maker "knocks" the cheese to check if it is matured enough to sell or devour. The various sounds were interesting and reminded me of dad teaching me to knock on watermelons at Freddies 😂

• The farm we visited is "small" and only creates 6 wheels of cheese a day
• A single wheel of cheese weighs 36 kg (80lbs!)
• To be parmigiano reggiano it must be aged a minimum of 12 months
• 1200 litres of milk is used for a single wheel (that's about 317 gallons!)
• Parma Ham is a biproduct of the cheese since the milk whey used in production, but not the final product, is siphoned off for use on pig farms
• A 12month wheel costs about €450
• salt is an essential ingredient
• this cheese is made from skim milk not the milk fats!

   

Got to nibble some cheese at the end of the curd steaming process where it condenses into some smooshy cheese before being molded into wheels to age for years. It was not as tasty in this form! 

Parmigiano reggiano is marked during the curd state. These markings are codes that reveal everything including cows used, workers involved, days made, place it aged, and the final stamp of approval.

Parma Ham in Langhirano:

He did get a big old plate of it at the end of our tour but he almost couldn't wait! 

Last summer, my favourite snack to order was prosciutto e melone (reminder "e" at the end of words is pronounced like you're Canadian! So, me-loan-eh). All parma hams are proscuitto but not all proscuittos are parma ham. This is another protected product recognized all around the world. The little crown found on genuine Proscuitto di Parma has become a symbol for the region and our server one night had it tattooed on his neck much like Alaskans often have the big dipper! Prosciutto also comes from the Middle Ages when they needed an easy way to preserve meat and there was an abundance of air and salt. Luckily, we missed butchering day, because I'm not sure I could have handled that but within hours the drying process starts. We got to walk through the various drying rooms, each with their own distinct aroma. Pretty sure Brian was trying to consume the air! 

   

Not my favourite place, despite loving some prosciutto, but Brian was in hog

Heaven. *Pun 100% intended*

Certified Prosciutto di Parma or a tattoo if you're Parmesan🤷‍♀️

Balsamic Vinegar @ Giuseppe Giusti 

"After 15 years, balsamic vinegar can be considered enjoyable, after 30 years it's simply better. Only after 50 years, the vinegar of Modena begins to take that aroma and that special flavor that makes it worthy of the name balsamic."

This family run business has been in continual balsamic production since 1605! WHAT?! In perspective, that's 171 years OLDER than the United States and the same year that Guy Fawkes tried to blow up Parliament in the name of the Catholics of Britain! This family uses the palomino fino and lambrusco grapes and consequently enough we love both those types of wines too! We got a guided tour through their museum, which was so informative with our story telling guide who could speak 4 languages that we know of!

Don't put balsamic in ceramic! It's too porous and will help the liquid solidify when in contact with the air. The Giusti's learned this the hard way. That ceramic pot on the second shelf was found with that solid hunk of coal like vinegar on the top shelf. Likely from the 1600s, when you lift the glass dome IT STILL SMELLS LIKE VINEGAR but a solid gross mass.

The Giusti's would celebrate the birth of babies by starting a new batch of vinegar. On the daughter's 25th birthday the vinegar was prime and they would take the smallest of the batch barrel and put a rope on it. This was her dowery! Vinegar! Her new family would use it sparingly as it was considered black gold.

• Also a protected product with the PDO type being significantly higher quality than the blended PGI type
• Barrels were put in the attics which got very cold in winter and very hot in summer. (While those temp variances make my stomach turn when thinking of food, it's necessary for balsamic!)
• Lots of similarities of balsamic barrels to whisky barrels! Brian was teacher's pet today🤓
• Barrels are never totally emptied and it reminded me of sourdough starter
• Balsamic was introduced to the world as a commercial product by this family during the 1873 World's Fair and they still use the barrels from those batches of balsamic! 
• Cooked grape juice is called saba before aging into balsamic and Romans used it as honey it was so sweet

     

"The older the better" for barrels even if they're leaking!

Everything we got to taste! It didn't allll come home with us but Brian has a cheesecake with raspberry infused Giusti balsamico reduction sauce waiting for visitors!

🇮🇹 Italian Morsels to Share🇮🇹

Train stations can be confusing at first! Logically you'd look at the departure board to find the place you are departing to but only the train's final destination is listed! So you have to look at your ticket for the train number. Additionally, they don't post which platform you'll depart from until about ten minutes before departure. This results in a mass of people standing around waiting for God, or the departure updater, to get to work.

In most Italian hotels there is a spot to put your key when you first end. This is a master light command so when you pull your key the lights go out also. And you never lose your key!

To say "ok" in Italian you say "va bene" (those "e"s again! So "va-been-eh). We've been using this one a lot but I do have a fear of saying va bene when it is not actually va bene! 

Santa Maria della Steccata, built in 1521 around a fresco of Mary 
breast feeding Jesus. Even got to witness a small service while there.

Duomo (Cathedral) di Parma & the Baptistery

Parma Puppet museum but more like marionettes. It was creepy.
And fascinating. Also used far more into contemporary times than I thought! I thought
the one in the lower left looked a bit like Jef Dunham's Walter!

 He stumbled onto a TINY brewery (which is very rare here) and ordered in Italian!