The "birth" of Cheese.

July 12, 2010
Happy Monday! Today we got a charter bus and went to a small(ish) town called Parma. It is the home of Parmesan Cheese…so we knew we would be in for a really good day. We had to be ready to go really early in the morning…at 7 a.m.! And breakfast normally doesn’t start until 7 a.m., so that created a little bit of a predicament. Luckily, they opened the breakfast doors early and so hordes of us hungry BYU students flooded the small breakfast room at 6:58…shoving globs of food into our faces like our lives depended on it. Okay, maybe that’s a little extreme, but we really only had about 5 minutes to grab something to eat and then head out to the bus. We had a number of surprises today that really made the day more interesting. First, we got on the bus and it was super smokey. Apparently, our driver has a nice little habit that he likes to share with his passengers (more on this later). After we all got cancer from inhaling the smokey air, we were off. It took about 1.5 hours to get to Parma. We met up with our tour guide for the day and he led our driver out to a small factory about 30 minutes away where they manufacture Parmesianno Reggiano cheese. It’s a specific brand of cheese that is supposed to be very high quality. We got to tour the plant, and honestly, I had no idea that it took so much wok to get the freaking cheese out and to market. The cheese is all natural too, which is really cool. First, they milk the cows and let some of the milk sit over night. Then, they mix it with some other stuff in this super big vat, which makes the milk curdle and start becoming cheese. It all comes together at the bottom and then at the perfect moment, the master cheeseman lifts the cheese up (it’s at that moment that parmesan cheese is born…yup. Born. No joke.) And then over a few month/year process they compact the cheese, burn the tops and bottoms, help the cheese get its flavor through nearly a month of soaking in salt water, and then curing for up to 2 years. Yum. I have never seen so much cheese in my life. We got to taste a 3 month old and then a 24 month old set of cheese at the end and naturally, the 24 month cheese was much better.
After that tour, we set off for another one that would prove to be even more interesting. We drove for another 30 minutes towards a castle that was used in the 1980s movie, “Lady hawke”. Nearby, is a factory where they make the parma ham. It takes about a year to make the ham, and the only ingredients are salt, and ham. Its not cooked. Its barely even packaged. It’s a lot of salting (done by the master salter, and it wasn’t half bad. We tasted it as part of some prosciutto (I guess that is what it really is anyway) an ti really wasn’t terrible.
We stopped at the castle and walked around for a few minutes, but they were closed on Mondays so we weren’t able to go in. So, we headed off to the Barilla Pasta factory where we would have lunch.
By this time, we were all really hungry. But none of us were prepared for what would come out during our special lunch meal ( we were in a private lunch area. So cool).
As we sit there waiting for the ladies to serve us our plates we notice little purple things on the plates. As the ladies bring our individual plates in and serve them to us, we see long stringy arm looking things mixed in with the yellow potatoes on the plates. The things are purple, and there were little suction cups all along the legs. What was it? Octopus. So many people from the group got totally grossed out, and couldn’t finish their meal, but I was determined to be a part of the clean plate club. So…I did. I also didn’t know if this was the main course or no, an I was super hungry so I ate it all up.
But then, the lady came out with more. Large plates of penne pasta were served with mini shrimp. Balsamic Vinegar was a nice touch. I thought we were done, then another plate came out. More potatoes, and a filet of (super fishy fish…I’m not sure what it was.) This plate was good, but required a bit more balsamic to make it through. Plus, I’d committed to be a memnber of the clean plate club. I couldn’t stop now!
At last, they brought out a large bowl of salad and a pennecotta raspberry for dessert. It was so good, and a totally different consistency than I would have expected. I’d have some again for sure!
Oh..and yes. I AM a member of the freaking clean plate club. (I didn’t finish the salad, but seeing as its not a plate….well. You get the point.)
The next stop was the Barilla pasta factory. They make three types of pasta there, and then they also package the pasta, and ship it out. It was SO COOL. Actually, it was extremely hot because we had to wear these protective hats and coats, and the machines put off a lot of hot air, if you know what I mean…
Anyway, the tour was awesome. Everything happened so fast, and we got to try the pasta right as it was coming out of the machine. It was a bit doughy because it hasn’t dried, but it was surprisingly good! I would have never guessed making pasta was full of so much awesomeness. So, buy Barilla pasta. (I’m not biased…I promise ☺
Back on the bus and we headed to the Academia Barilla, which is a subsidiary of the Barilla company. They mostly focus on protecting the Italian cuisine as an art. We had a great presentation (minus the A/C…once again very “cool”,) and then got a tour of their facility. They do a lot of cuisine classes and a lot of other activities for normal people and practicing chefs. I’d totally go and learn how to do Italian! It would be awesome. They took us to their private library and showed us some really old/cool menus. The oldest one was from the 1500’s. Yeah, I touched a 500 year old menu. No big deal. And they had a bunch of menus that some artist (I don’t remember) would create for a group dinner party over and over. I touched it too, but that’s how cool it was…that I can remember what it is now haha.
Anyway, the day was long, but really rewarding. We got back in the bus and most everyone fell asleep on the way home. Me and a couple other guys wanted to see if anything downtown was open (they wanted to shop) and so we walked down towards the duomo. Italy (Europe) is much different from the US, simply because things here in Europe close so early compared to the US. We are brought up on stores that are open more often than not, where here they are open for maybe 5 or 6 hours a day total (that’s with a 3-4 hour break in the middle of the day). Not every place is like that of course, but we found a lot that were.
Not many places were open, but we found a few places here and there. Naturally, one of the stores that was open was more American in style. I didn’t go to Italy to buy underwear that has America and NYC plastered all over it. Haha. I made another good luck spin on the bulls’ balls, and then we found this indoor mall that was still open. First, it was 9 stories high! And second, I don’t really understand why people would ever shop there. Haha. Most of the stuff was all Louis Vuitton, or Gucci stuff, so it was crazy expensive. I think I saw a set of underwear for 90 Euro (Around 130 US,) and all that good stuff. Haha. Gotta love it. We were getting really hungry and started looking for somewhere to eat, but nothing was really working out. We kept seeing this random lady drive by and she asked us twice (unil she remembered we didn’t speak Italian) where something was. Haha. We seriously saw her like 5 times in 5 different places within a 20 minute span. Haha. Anyway, Everything was closed. But luckily, we found some pizza right before we got home. It was cheap and the piece was HUGE. I really like the margherita pizza here. In the words of my sister Annette, its “yumma-lumma.”
I love Italy. It is much different than I expected it to be, but I’ve heard that is how Milan is. We are in more of the business district so it’s a bit harder to go out and look at things at night, but what I have seen so far has been awesome. Life is good. Now, off to China.