saluto prosciutto.

What : Festival Prosciutto do Parma 

Where : Parma, Italy 

When : 10 - 19 September 2010

The festival has been going on for the last 12 years and each year, the producers open their doors to visitors in what is called Finestre Aperte (Open Windows). There's a tour, a chance to taste the ham from whichever producer you are visiting and of course, with Italian hospitality, a few glasses of wine to go along with it.

Around the area there is the Museo del Prosciutto and Museo del Salame to visit as well.  And all around town there are plenty of shops selling every single kind ham and salame the region makes. 

The other highlight of the festival is palio which takes place in the center of Parma, on the last weekend. More of that later.

The producers often talk about the uniqueness of the region that gives the prosciutto its excellent taste -  how the thick chestnut forest removes salt from the air as it blows across the region,  how the sulphur rich salt preserves the sweetness of the ham, how the air is constantly damp from the Po river.

For me, the killer fact is the pigs in the region are fed whatever is left over from the production of Parmigiano Reggiano. After having eaten meat from animals that have been not been corn fed and tasted what chicken, lamb and beef ought to taste like, and how sweet they taste on their own, I'd like to think this must be the biggest reason.

If you think it is a crazy notion, watch Dan Baber on TED talk about what Eduardo Sousa's foie gras taste like.

(This is also the reason why I often think my rabbit back home would taste of fresh fields of grass, rosemary, thyme, sage, buckwheat with hints of pineapple, grape and strawberry, given how much he eats and given how he knowingly eats only the good stuff and cleverly ignores anything imported from the States.)

The average weight of a pig went from 82kg in the 1500s...

...to 180kg by 1960s.

Salt cured to draw out water and start preservation.

Hung to dry.
These fill floors and floors of the temperature controlled building.
On any floor you could be walking past at least 50 of these.
The smell of the room changes depending on the

Water leeching out of the hams.

Smearing a layer of lard, salt and pepper to stop it from drying out too much.

They let me taste the lard.
Spread onto big  thick slices of saltless Tuscan bread, it will not make a poor meal. 

Hung to dry again.
When it is time, an inspector from the Consortium comes,
sticks a needle made from horse bone into 5 places in the ham and smells if it is ready.

at least there was light at the end of the tunnel.

It costs half the price on the bus than to fly from London to Parma, Italy.

The downside of it was it takes 24 hours with stops in Paris and Milan involving slightly frantic bus changes. The upside was the bus will cross the France - Italy border, going along the coast of Cannes - Nice - Monaco and then into Italy. It would be a cheap way to see an expensive part of France. It would be a good deal. It would be a smart plan. Would.

It was as if the folks at the tourist board had thought of this already. There will be no freebies, especially for the cheapies on the bus. If anyone wanted to see any bit of France, they will have to stay the average 3 days and pay the required tourist dollars.

The best daylight portion of the journey was wasted on miles and miles of motorway not worth looking up for. By the time we hit the coastal border and the landscape was looking up, the sun was coming down quickly. It was as it someone had come and drawn the curtains - sorry, show's over.

So instead of the nice villages, they only allowed us the twinkling lights of the villages.

Fuckers.

what was good at the Speciality Chocolate Fair

What : Speciality Chocolate Fair

Where : London Olympia
When : 4 - 6 September 2010

Lots of options but were their more unusual flavours.

Danucci's.
Everything was good.
Must try the Passionfruit Ganache.

Lots of great stuff in their range.
All with real fruit.
This was my favourite.

 

The last one is Casanella Xocolaters.

They have too many great combinations:

Pistachio and milk chocolate

Walnuts, black chocolate and cocoa

Goji and white chocolate

Hazelnut praline,white chocolate and grape pulp

Mango and cinnamon

Champagne and lavender flower

really stretching it.

One of the cheese workshops I sat in.

This is Dudley, the head cheesemaker from the Ludlow Food Center and he demonstrated how easy it was to stretch a ball of curd.  All he had on stage was a bucket, a ball of curd and hot water.

He also makes a Shropshire Blue using carrot juice for colouring rather than annatto.

a better butter story.

Butter churning.

Opening up the top of the barrel.

Kneading the butter to get the rest of the liquid out.

Eventually getting to a lump of butter that is smooth in texture and dry.

Adding salt to make salted butter.

The shaping begins.

A different shape and pattern is pressed into each block of butter.

All these are done not with any additional tools or gadgets.
She does this using the same two paddles she has in her hands.

Why do I like small producers?

Because what they do is honest and real. They don't create a story about what they do. They do what they do because of their story.

Because the people who make the stuff care a lot more. Doing it the harder way is alright if it ends up being better.

Because what they do and how they do it is more interesting than what goes in and comes out of a factory.

It's always easy to tell when producers care a lot about what they do. They could have just put the butter into a container. People were sold on their butter by the mere fact it was hand churned right on the spot.
 
They didn't need to go that bit further and spoil us strangers by making pretty patterns but they did. If they put so much more effort into this last stage of the process, think of how much more they have been spoiling their precious cows all year round. 

Poor Anchor.  When they don't have a story to tell, when their cows are as good as factory cows, when milk simply gets passed through lengths and lengths of steel pipes, when every bit of the process is industrialised, when not a single person has come into contact with the milk from the point the cow was milked to the slabs of butter rolled out, then the only thing they have got is this.

This is the only thing they can say about their butter.

P/S. And Anchor has spent £10m to tell the world this butter story of theirs. Or was there one?

i ate and i prayed.

One of the things I was determined to try despite the annoying egg allergy is pudding. All sorts of biscuits, cookies, tarts, cakes and fools. I have spent the past 3 months in a country with a very sweet tooth, only to not be able to eat any of it.

So I decided it was time to have some, whatever the consequences. I had my meds, I was prepared. I was at a huge festival, there was no way I was going to miss out.

And then I spotted this in the festival programme :

Pudding Tasting at Ludlow's Methodist Church on Broad Street. 

Just £2 gets you a portion of four puddings from a choice exceeding 300.

I would be going from a position of having absolutely no choice to a choice of 300! It was exactly what I needed to help me plunge right in without burning a hole right through.

The thought itself drove me insane. There were 2 possible outcomes : At best, I could either happily eat away and get as close to 300 without feeling pain or regret. At the very worst, I would have to stop after the first bite.

It was quite apt the tasting took place in a church. After I made my choice, I sat down on a pew with my plate. I ate and I ate and I prayed and I prayed.

And I was fine but there was no way I could go back for anymore. I was out at 4.

Raspberry mousse, cheesecake, pear and chocolate tart and something else I don't remember.
I was deliriously by then.

more spores.

Sporeboys. 

 

This was a nice change of scenery by the time I spotted them.

They were the only ones in the entire festival to be different and the first of it's kind I have come across.

Too bad I was a stuffed sausage by the time I got to them, so I didn't get a chance to try any.

stop the press.

Ralph kindly stopped midway so I can take this picture.

Ralph's Cider and Perry.

They do everything themselves - grow, mill, press, ferment and bottle. And they do it the old fashion way because, for them, it is the only way it ought to be done.

So this Victorian press which they have transported all the way to the Ludlow festival is not novelty and for a bit of attention. It's what they do every day. Anyone who wants to see it in action can do so at the mill. They won't be rolling it out specially because someone is probably using it already.

And they are looking for more traditional presses, mills and other equipment so they can increase their production. I think it's cool they didn't choose to ring up someone and place an order for a huge gleaming piece of metal instead.

This is called a Victorian Oak Beam Screw Press.

And yes, this is Ralph.