Sicily - late March

Emilia-Romagna - early April

Ferrara Intro

Apartment

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Rossetti

Eating!

Ravenna Hills 1

Ravenna Hills 2

Faenza

Tuscany, Florence - April 8

Umbria - late April

Many Tasty Things in Ferrara

Ferrara is a wonderful place to eat. After all, it's very close to Parma, where the lovely hams and cheeses come from. And very close to Bologne where the sauce and many pasta shapes were invented. And it's also a major chocolate center, rivaling even the Swiss, I would venture, in variety and quality of chocolates. There are several shops that offer chocolates just like a bakery offers bread, rolls and cookies. And there's no other candy, just chocolate. In lovely cool cases, beautifully displayed, not jumbled together with other, lesser, sweets. At this time of year, just past Easter, there was the added benefit of huge chocolate eggs, I mean at least a foot wide with walls an inch thick, that didn't sell, being broken up and offered in pieces by the pound (well, kilo, actually).

We didn't indulge very often, but one evening, Jenny and Nicola invited us to an art gallery open house just down the street. We dutifully dressed up and appeared 15 minutes into the time period offered. The gallery, Galleria Monica Benini (Contrado della Rose, 36/40, no website), represents three local artists and the paintings were okay, but the reception was the best. There was fizzy water or fizzy wine--very sparingly poured--and chocolate of many sorts--very lavishly offered. There were two--count them, two--chocolate fountains with fresh strawberries. There were individual chocolates of every flavor, filling and decoration. There were hunks of chocolate pebbled with toasted hazelnuts, served up in 4 oz chunks on a stick, a specialty of the region. There must have been a pound of chocolates for every person there. That night we did indulge. And thanked Sra Benini, but didn't buy any art.

There are also a number of non-chocolate Ferrarase specialties that people said we had to try. so we did. One is a crisp bread, called a coppia. This bread smells and looks nice, but to our taste was pretty boring. Kind of like a soft white roll that has gone stale and hard. Jenny said she didn't really like it either, but that Nicola had to have it almost every day. (Do check the link, it has some interesting historical information.)

Our next recommendation was the "capellacci di zucca," pumpkin-stuffed pasta which you eat either with sage and melted butter (you know you're in the north when butter is involved), or a meat sauce and cheese. We bought the pasta (like ravioli) at the local market. At this market, they ask if you want a bag, we were never sure if you paid for them or not, but I assume so. We always tried to bring the backpack or the stringbag anyway. After the market, we went to the butcher shop to discuss the sauce. Several customers got in on the debate--we were ignorant of the nuances, but felt bound by the outcome. The consensus was that we should have the Ragu di Capriole, venison sauce (roe buck is the translation, I think it was venison, it came in a jar, so who knows), with reggiano for sprinkling and arugula salad with olive oil and modena balsamic vinegar. All of this cost us very little money and was very, very good. And very, very rich. Throw in a little bread (not the coppia) and we could have fed at least six people on the amount they sold us (which looked very reasonable when we bought it). This was one of the best meals we had.

Another local specialty we tried was "spicchio di salami da sugo precotta," which caused some initial confusion because of the similarity of sugar in English and sugo, which is sauce or gravy in Italian. Sugar is zucchero. Anyway, this is a weird ground/processed meat sold in balls of a size about halfway between a softball and a bowling ball. A whole one will run you about 20 euros. We bought a wedge, a "spicchio," an eighth of a ball for five. It's all sealed up in foil. You put it in a pot of water and boil it for at least an hour. When we told Jenny we were making one, she said, "Oh, dear, it's quite an acquired taste. Do you have any instant potatoes?" We didn't, so she insisted on giving us some, and advised that we should toss the gravy and not smell the meat at all before we ate it. Despite all this, we quite enjoyed the meal. After you open the bag, we concur that you should drain most of the gravy and not smell too closely. But scraped out of the skin, on mashed potatoes, it makes a very nice ground pork sauce with excellent seasonings. And once again arugula is a nice balance to the rich meat this region produces.

I also very much enjoyed the pretzel-like snack called tarelli, flavored with anise seed (and learned later it originates down south in Puglia); the wonderful gnocchi with gorgonzola (5 euros a plate at our favorite bar, the Meeting Bar), and the tuna sandwiches rolled up on very thin crustless white bread. You can buy the bread in the grocery stores, but I never got the hang of the rolling and I never saw this approach anywhere else either. Mostly we ate our home-made version of grilled panini. We would buy a nice piece of foccacia, split it in half and then fill with very thinly sliced ham (the prosciutto cotto, cooked ham; not the prosciutto crudo, dry cured, but not cooked). Then a little cheese, not too much and, if you feel like it, some arugula. Grilling is best, but we did it in a lightly olive-oiled skillet with great results. We often didn't know what kind of cheese we had, just that it was yummy--and sometimes, so were the guys who made it and sold it.

All the little specialty shops and stands were a constant temptation to buy too much. And since I left before Dawn, I hope she just gave everything left over to Jenny. We had already exchanged soups with Jenny, so I'm sure it would be fine--we made a version of my Christmas minestrone (which actually means any old soup in Italian) and Jenny gave us a sort of pasta fazool. Which is really pasta e fagioli (ee fa-gee-OH-lee), or, pasta and beans. Both were quite good (she said modestly).

The pastries are fantastic all over Italy, including here. The gelato in Ferrara was so-so until we finally found the shop that does it right. (If anyone is going there, let me know and I'll tell you how to find it.) This shop has all the standards flavors (pistachio, coffee, hazelnut, vanilla, fruits) and a few weird ones besides (gummi bear, junk like that). Its biggest claim to fame is that you can buy it by the kilo (or less) to take home, instead of just cones or cups, small, medium and large. Great fun to watch them load up a large waxed container with 6 or 8 different flavors and even more fun to imagine the party that's going to happen when it gets home.

Next, some trips into the hills of the province of Ravenna.