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Thorns in the cheese and elsewhere
Piazza Garibaldi, ColornoInteresting fact learned the other day: the tool used to break the curd during the making of a parmigiano-reggiano cheese is called a spino, meaning thorn-bush, after the hawthorne bushes traditionally used in the process. We are looking forward to our first field trip to see the process for ourselves in the next week or so.
The week is flying by as we compare notes on our various degrees of illness and ease into life in this new country, new course of study. Tomorrow the public services have conspired to allow those of our class living in Parma to experience our first public transit sciopero (strike), and so our morning will be spent competing for taxi service to get us to classes on time. This will be swiftly followed by a train strike on the weekend. Bemused travellers in this country will have noticed alternate train and other schedules posted ‘in caso di sciopero’. Such is their regularity that you can consult a calendar of them to plan your movements accordingly.
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Cheese technology, dragon sausages and rocket soup
Hmm… what’s wrong with this picture…
Enjoying the walk back to class. Postprandial view: fountain at the Reggia di Colorno.Week two has started at the University of Gastronomic Sciences, and we’re deep into microbiology and the technology of cheese. A classmate has thrown down the gauntlet and invited me to find poetry in that.. but first I must master the terminology. No easy thing. But perhaps by the end of the week I’ll know my triglycerides from my diglycerides and my casein from my hydrolytic enzymes. Yessir… thank the lords ‘n ladies of technology for Wikipedia is all I can say. And bless the foresight and generosity of Douglas Goff for creating the Dairy Science and Technology website.
And thank heavens for email. One of my correspondents reliably informs me that at the moment a company in the UK is being hauled over the coals for calling their product “Welsh Dragon Sausages” on the grounds that it is not a true description of the contents. Apparently a commentator on this topic noted that it had blown the cold wind of fear into the makers of shepherd’s pie, angel cakes and chocolate brownies.
Owing to my continuing throat ailment I stayed in tonight and had some nourishing soup. Not chicken soup which I’m sure really does cure everything, but some rocket soup, a kind of vegetable jet fuel I’m hoping, and nice to eat while you catch up on the story of Elizabeth Smart and George Barker:
Rocket Soup
1 tbsp butter
1 large shallot, minced
1/4 cup minced fresh fennel
1 small carrot, minced
1 medium potato, diced
3 cups vegetable broth
2 cups rocket- Melt the butter in a saucepan on medium and add the shallot, cooking for a couple of minutes until soft.
- Add the fennel and carrot and cook gently on low heat about 10 minutes.
- Add the potato and then the broth. Bring to the boil and then simmer another 5-10 minutes until the vegetables are soft.
- Add the rocket, cover and cook another few minutes until the rocket has wilted. Season with salt and pepper.
- I was lacking a blender, but it could (should?) be blended/pureed at this point or served as is.
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Random walking and eating
A day of major excitement yesterday as we hopped the bus to Euro Torri to pick up some essentials at Media World and Brico and then wandered under the road to Ipercoop. Such wonders I have seen, and indeed carried home on my back.
I was intrigued by the Ipercoop’s Salvatempo, a magical wand you can employ if you are the fortunate holder of a carta sociocoop; you carry it round the store with you, pointing it at your groceries and making joyful beeping sounds, saving many tedious minutes of operazioni ripetitive.
This weekend I am suffering from il mal di gola, so have not been up to much, but here are some snaps from recent days.
Parma Torrente after a few days’ rain: feeling much more itself.
Sadly for this one’s living relatives, you can find such delicacies as pesto di cavallo or bistecca di cavallo on the menus round here.
My this was good: carpaccio of swordfish (pesce spada).
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In her latest collection, Rhona McAdam navigates the dark places of human movement through the earth and the exquisite intricacies lingering in backyard gardens and farmlands populated by insects and pollinators, all the while returning to the body, to the tune of staccato beats and the newly discovered symmetries within the human heart.
“…A beautiful, filling collection, Larder is a set of poems to read at the change of the seasons, to appreciate alongside a good meal, and to remind yourself of the beauty in everything, even the things you may not appreciate before opening McAdam’s collection….”
Rhona McAdam is a writer, poet, editor, and Registered Holistic Nutritionist with a Master’s in Food Culture from Italy and a deep-rooted passion for ecology and urban agriculture. Her work spans corporate and technical writing to poetry and creative nonfiction, often exploring the vital links between what we eat and how we live. Based in Victoria, BC, and available via Zoom, Rhona is always open to new writing commissions, readings, or workshops on nutrition and the culinary arts.
