In good taste
Bologna is proud of its culinary heritage, evident at every turn in the historic city. But a new foodie theme park is dividing opinion, finds Laura Millar
Foodie city breaks to Bologna and Lisbon
Never, never ask for spaghetti Bolognese in a restaurant here!” laughs Catia Aliberti, who’s taking me on a food tour of the city on a crisp but sunny wintry morning. “So many people think it’s a dish invented in Bologna, and want to order it, but it doesn’t actually exist.” What people actually mean when they think of a dish with long strands of pasta with a rich, tomato and minced beef and/or pork sauce is tagliatelle al ragu. Any Italian worth his or her salt knows that you simply can’t serve spaghetti with a hearty meat sauce – you need a thicker pasta that will make the sauce cling to it, otherwise it will just slide off.
Misconception corrected, Catia goes on to list the other dishes Bologna is best known for. There are tortellini, small, stuffed knots of fresh pasta made with flour and eggs, filled with meat and usually eaten in a light broth; tortelloni, which are bigger, often filled with ricotta and eaten with either butter or Parmesan or a tomato sauce; pazzatelli, small,
Here, pasta is made by hand, balsamic vinegar is barrel-aged, and Parmesan cheese is stored in giant wheels
short pasta strings made with bread and egg; lasagna, made here with layers of green, spinach pasta (white pasta sheets hail from Rome – this, it seems, is an important distinction); and cotoletta alla Bolognese, a pork cutlet fried in breadcrumbs and topped with a layer of Parma ham and Parmesan. And that’s before we even get onto dessert, which includes zuppa inglese (a light, thin custard), torta di riso, a rice-pudding type flan, or torta di adobbi, decorated with hundreds and thousands….
It’s only ten in the morning, but already Catia’s catalogue of Bologna’s culinary delights is making my mouth water. I have a feeling that on my return from this long weekend, I’ll have earned myself the same nickname the city has: La Grossa, or ‘the fat one’. Bologna actually has three nicknames, which all refer to its history. La Grossa nods, of course, to its abundance of food. We’re in one of the most fertile and productive regions of the whole country; wheat and maize grow abundantly in its lowlands, to become the flour used in pasta dough and the grain for polenta, while pigs are reared by the thousand to provide plentiful Parma ham, coppa, and mortadella. Here, pasta is made by hand, balsamic vinegar is barrel-aged, and Parmesan cheese is stored in giant wheels. And boy, do its residents love to eat; currently, the city has over 900 restaurants.
Its second nickname, La Dotta, or ‘the learned one’, refers to Bologna’s university, the oldest in Western Europe. It was founded in 1088, and to this day, one fifth of the city’s population of half a million are students. Finally, it’s known as La Rossa, or ‘the red one’, which can be attributed either to its traditionally left-leaning, former Communist politics, or the colour of its buildings, made largely from terracotta. Catia and I pass plenty of these on our way to the Quadrilatero, the district which used to be home to the old, medieval market. Today it’s still the city’s centre of commerce, where silk sellers rub shoulders with salumerie, and shrunken but feisty nonne barter with fruit and vegetable sellers over the plumpest melanzala, or the ripest zucchini. It’s a fascinating, atmospheric, chaotic network of interwoven streets, such as via Drapperie, the main artery (named after the drapers who sold fabrics here) and via Pescherie Vecchie (or the ‘street of the old fishmongers’).
I want to dart into every store, and start with bakery Atti, which has been here since 1868. They make all kinds of cakes, pastries and panettone on site, as well as fresh tortellini, which you can buy by the kilo, and is packaged up for you in a smart cardboard box bearing the shop’s original, vintage logo. The smell of sugar permeates the air, as the women behind the counter – some of whom are still from the same family –
smilingly serve loyal local customers.
A few doors down is Tamburini, a former butcher’s which has also been here for decades; huge hocks of Parma ham dangle from the ceiling, stamped with that all-important crown which means they are DOC approved, or have ‘controlled destination of origin’ status, meaning they have been made according to the strictest procedures and are allowed to claim they’re from this region. Fridges and shelves are filled with everything from mortadella to mozzarella, chickens turn on a rotisserie, and elderly couples pick out salumi for that day’s lunch.
At the end of the via Pescherie Vecchie, the street opens out onto Bologna’s magnificent main square, the Piazza Maggiore, lined on one side with the City Hall, which bears a statue of Pope Gregory XIII, who studied law here, and invented the Gregorian calendar which we still use today. To the left is the unusual 14th century church of San Petronio; unusual, as it appears two-tone, its lower half clad in elaborate marble stonework, its upper half left unadorned. Apparently, the story goes that the then-pope in Rome was worried this church would turn out to be more impressive than St Peter’s, so cut off the money supply.
We wander towards the Mercato dell Herbe, the old fruit and vegetable market, along streets covered by Bologna’s famous porticos, or arcades; the city has over 25 miles of them, which keep residents cool and dry when it’s too hot, or – less often – raining. Today, the Mercato dell Herbe is a vast, modernised hall with stalls selling ripe, glossy produce, from plump, polished-looking tomatoes, to dark purple plums, as well as spiky-looking artichokes, and geometrically-shaped Romanesco broccoli. There are small restaurants and cafes here too, and we sit down and devour a plate of salumi and cheese with soft, pillowy crescentine, square shapes of fried dough.
Later that day, I head out of the city centre to visit what has divided opinion in the Quadrilatero and beyond: FICO Eataly World. This revolutionary, grand-scale, foodfocused project opened on 15 November last year, and is the brainchild of Italian entrepreneur Oscar Farinetti, who launched the Eataly chain of high-end supermarkets in 2004. Now he’s taken his Whole-foods-like ethos a massive step further, and this park aims to bring a transparent overview of Italian food production – from farm to fork – to the world.
That translates to 20 acres of restaurants, food stalls, and bars, as well as ‘farming factories’ – areas featuring different producers showcasing how they make their product from scratch, whether it’s coppa, or cannoli – and five acres of outdoor space planted with olive groves, wheat, orchards and vegetable patches. You can eat anything from a Michelin-starred meal to a ham piadina, sample freshly-brewed craft beer, take cooking classes and workshops, watch puppies sniff out pre-planted truffles, and stock up on those essentials (from a Bianchi bike to a Fiat-shaped Smeg fridge) in the shopping area. There’s a strong focus on sustainability, too – at least 70 per cent of the food produced on site will be used in the restaurants.
When I visit, the park – which looks like a slick cross between Ikea and an airport – is busy enough, mainly with local families, and a handful of tourists. But not everyone is in favour of this €120 million project. Back in the Quadrilatero, at an artisan coffee shop run by locals Cristina and her husband, Alessandro, Cristina expresses her disapproval at what she believes will take away business from small enterprises like hers, and will send a message of inauthenticity to visitors. I don’t think she needs to worry, however. Go to FICO to learn about the life cycle of the honeybee, or how to make perfect pizza dough; but then come back to the city to steep yourself in centuries of culinary tradition.