Quick notes from Italy
I had read somewhere that Bologna was known, even in medieval times, as La Grassa, such is the richness of its cuisine. Well, if spaghetti Bolognese is anything to go by, one can hardly be surprised - although I must add that in Bologna the dish is made with tagliatelle and not spaghetti.
They have no need of umbrellas in Bologna. One can walk the streets under arcades for most of the time; there are kilometres of them. The centre of the city is definitely Piazza Maggiore with the literally enormous and unfinished basilica dedicated to the town’s patron saint, Petronius, who was Bologna’s bishop and first minister of tourism. After the fall of Jerusalem in 1185, he had a copy of the church of the Holy Sepulchre built in this once-papal city, making it a popular destination with pilgrims, who were the tourists of their day, bringing much-valued money and trade. Since then, Bologna has revered St. Petronius as the chief source of its prosperity.
We visited the church complex of Santo Stefano, where I bought a tisana di camaldoli alla quercia marina composta, a wonderful name for a quirky concoction made by the monks in their antica farmacia. I was assured that it would be efficacious in helping me shed a few pounds (“per dimagrire”), but the only pounds that were shed were those that went towards paying for it. The effects of the tisana are still eagerly awaited. So far it has proved unequal to the task of combatting an onslaught of Parma ham, Parmesan cheese and mortadella. A visit to Tamburini’s is a gourmet’s delight. Hams hang luxuriantly from the ceiling while all sorts of cheeses, pastas and a plethora of delicacies decorates the counters. I was told that Tamburini epitomises Bologna.
And so we went from Bologna, with its strange twin towers, to Ferrara, the original home-town of one of the grandest families of the Italian peninsula: the Este, or as they are referred to in Italy, the Estensi. Ferrara is still largely surrounded by the original reddish medieval city walls, and the townscape is dominated by the Castello Estense, where the notorious Lucrezia Borgia died as Duchess of Ferrara, while still in her early 30s, after having presented her husband, Alfonso d’Este, with several children. Contrary to popular belief, poor Lucrezia was a saintly woman who wore a hair-shirt next to her skin, possibly in expiation for the terrible sins committed by her infamous family, especially her father, Pope Alexander VI and her brother, Cesare.
Thence, to Modena, where the Estensi took refuge in the 16th century after the pope of the day decided to seize possession of the city of Ferrara. Bologna and Ferrara were papal states, or stati pontificii - fiefs to be given or taken away by the sovereign pope. Modena remained an Este duchy until the unification of Italy in 1861, when their descendants, the Habsburg dukes of Modena-Este lost out to the House of Savoy, which took up the throne of a unified Italy, though not for long.
Modena is the home of Lamborghini, Maserati and Ferrari, but also of balsamic vinegar, aceto balsamico tradizionale. It is a very distant relation of the aceto balsamico we buy with great alacrity from the local supermarket, being more of a delicacy comparable to white truffles and Iranian caviar.
We visited the charming Chiara Galli on her estate in the midst of fragrant trebbiano vineyards, from which grape the balsamico is made. We were told that it was always the job of the chatelaine of the estate to prepare the aceto balsamico. Signora Galli inherited the secret of making it from her apparently formidable mother-in-law.
Juice from the trebbiano grape is reduced over a low flame, so that the sweetness is intensified. Then it is filtered through five different barrels, each one made of a different wood: oak, chestnut, cherry, ash, and mulberry. The aceto balsamico is aged for a truly impressive 25 years, and then sold at prohibitive cost. It is eaten as a delicacy in itself, rather than as a dressing for something else, usually dropped onto pieces of hard cheese. It has a very dark and treacly consistency and plays out a medley of flavours on the tongue.
Kenneth Zammit Tabona flew to Bologna as a guest of Malta International Airport and Meridiana, which operates flights between Malta and Bologna.