Smithville meets (and eats) Europe

My brother, Mom and a family friend came to town; small town USA meets big town Europe! (Well, not Reggio Emilia, but there were big towns involved.)  They spent the weekend in Rome while I was in the Alps, then we all met up together Sunday evening and headed to my Italian family's favorite local pizza place.  I showed off my Italian a bit by telling the waiter we were meeting the family there, and then I took charge of ordering for my mom and myself.  I chose the Napolian, which sounded delicious with basil and buffalo mozzarella.  However, my show-off Italian self missed a core ingredient on the pizza.  When it came out, they placed it in front of my mom and two six-inch sardines stared up at her.  Her gaze slowly lifted from the plate to meet my eyes in a disgusted, "how-dare-you" accusation.  I apologized and admitted my fault, but even after we scraped the fish to the side the flavor still saturated the pizza.  Welcome to Italy, Ma!

The mother of my Italian family organized a tour of a local balsamic vinegar plant for us all to attend (in the middle of her crazy work week; I swear that woman is superhuman!)  The tour was fantastic, and we all had a good time tasting the differences in quality and age afterward.  Here's a brief pictorial tour:

Our guide explaining the process of cooking grape skins to glean ingredients for vinegar.

The barrel room.

Each set of 5 barrels made a bateria (or drum) of a vinegar.  Each year they take out what they need from each barrel (the smalles barrel being the oldest), then refill if from the larger barrel next to it in the line.

Artwork in the barrel room depicting how nature affects the aging of acete balsamico (balsamic vinegar).

Balsamic Vinegar must be 12 years aged before it is quality enough to bottle and pass inspection.   The newest, minimun quality vinegars receive a red label.  Silver label is the next step, usually for vinegars up to 25 years-aged.  Gold label is 25+ years and the highest quality, these small bottles sell for over 100 euros.  You can really taste the complexity as the years go on.

The entire vinegar plant: the tasting room is to the left and the barrel house in on the right.

My mother and I, later in the week, toured a Parmigiano Reggiano cheese production plant.  It amazed me at each of these plants how little interest the workers had in obtaining our money, and how dedicated they were to helping us understand how their product was made.  Each of them is part of a consortium for their respective products, so if they educate people it does good for the consortium on the whole.  But there was still a blatant lack of money hunger, which impressed me very much.  For example, my mom and I arranged a tour for ourselves for which we were expecting to pay, although at the end they never asked for a dime (or a centesimo).  So the tour was free, and the woman spent a considerable amount of time with us, letting us sample whatever we pleased and explaining the process in detail.  I feel that there is a stark difference if you walk into a shop in the U.S.  I'm mainly using a winery as an analogy, in which you almost feel obligated to buy a bottle at the end of a tasting, and it is certainly known that the person in the room wants you to.  Maybe the lack of intense capitalism in Italy runs deeper to financial support employees receive from the government, so they don't have the motivation to earn money as we do.  Or, maybe it is spurred from the genteel culture of the country.  I don't know, but I appreciated it.

Tanks heating the milk with starter whey added, which will later become cheese.

He later stuck his bare hand in the tank and grabbed us a sample of flavorless cheese to try.  That's sanitary, right?

Before this stage they added a yellow, yeasty bacteria which was skimmed from a tank the previous day.  These curds will settle into the bottom of the tank, then they will be removed and placed in a mold to form a round.

Said yellow, yeasty bacteria in the buckets sitting on the floor.

After they pour the thickened milk into molds and let them harden, they remove the molds and let the cheese soak in a sea-saltwater bath. This is where the cheese gets a lot of its flavor. 

Each cheese round will soak here for thirty days, before which it will reach a point where it can no longer absorb the salt.

Holding the fresh, raw milk.

So much cheese!!

Our wonderful tour guide.

The oldest cheeses, going back to 2008.  Generally after three years they don't sell the cheese publicly because the flavor changes so much, but there are special buyers who are searching for that taste. 

Cheese gone wrong.  Cheeses with defects are not allowed to have the Parmiggiano Reggiano label, per the consortium.  The consortium comes to test every month, doing everything from smelling and tasting to tapping on the cheese with a special hammer to listen to the density.  Only the best get the label!

In order to be considered Parmiggiano Reggiano all elements of the process must take place within this region, including where the cows eat and produce milk.