A visit to the gastronomic heart of Italy

Daniel McKenna
Sep 2, 2018 · 6 min read

Bologna

Bologna is a wonderful city to visit. It doesn’t have the crowds or the tourism industry of Rome, Venice and Florence but it does have a bountiful charm which will absorb you into an authentic Italian city experience.

Bologna is the capital of the Emiglia Romagna region and has many nicknames which tell you a lot about the city.

The first is “la dotta” meaning “the learned” as it houses the oldest university in Europe (founded in 1078) with alumini from the mathematician Niccolò Copernico (Capernicus) to celebrated Ferrari founder Enzo Ferrari.

It is also referred to as “la rossa”, meaning the red. Some say this comes from the red roofs which cover most of Bolognas buildings, however the real reason is due to Bologna being one of the most left-wing cities in Italy.

It is Bologna’s final nickname that brings us here, “la grassa” meaning “the fat” is a name given due to the wealth of culinary indulgences on offer in this beautiful, medieval city.

Tortellini

Tortellini, wonderful meat filled pasta parcels

Our first stop in Bologna was lunch at Trattoria Anna Maria. You feel as soon as you enter this place, it is well used, and has been for years, and that tells me one thing, it’s going to be good!

Every wall in the place is covered with pictures of famous Italian singers and actors, who I assume have all visited as the pictures are accompanied with little notes of appreciation for Anna Maria and her restaurant.

The trattoria has a typically Bolognese menu, with tagliatelle al ragu and Lasagna alla Bolognese, but I’ve come to this specific trattoria to try one famous thing in particular, which this place is renowned for: Tortellini in Brodo.

Tortellini is a type of stuffed pasta, usually stuffed with some combination of meats. It is known and has variations across the region, and in the opinion of locals, it should only be eaten in a meaty Broth.

Once it arrives the first thing to do is add a light sprinkle of grated parmesan (its pasta after all), then I eagerly take my opening mouthful.

The first thing to surprise me is the amount of flavour that is packed into these penny sized, meat filled marvels. My mouth is filled with a delicious mixture of succulent meat and fresh pasta, the flavours and textures perfectly complimented by the meaty warm broth.

The tortellini are truly amazing, here at Anna Maria’s they fill them with a mixture of minced beef, minced pork, mortadella (more on this later), prosciutto, nutmeg and pepper. Then this mix is wrapped in fresh pasta. It sounds and is so simple, but the resulting flavours are plentiful and complex.

My wife ordered a slightly different pasta and broth, this time with a pasta called pasatelli. This is another traditional pasta from the region.

The pasatelli are like little pasta catepillars and mixed with the broth they combine to make a much simpler dish in terms of flavour, but nonetheless delicious.

The Pasatelli has quite a unique texture quite different to ‘normal’ pasta. Although they are cooked ‘al dente’ (soft on the outside, firm in the centre) they are a little softer and are a little grainy. This allows them to sort of melt in the mouth. They also have a slightly sweet, nutmeg flavour.

Porticoes

A portico street in Bologna, there are over 40km of these

After lunch we had a lovely walk through the portico streets of Bologna. The city has over 40km of these covered shopping arcades, and they are a pleasure to wander through. They also mean you don’t really have to worry about the weather when visiting Bologna.

We took in all the sights, such as the San Petronio Basilica, a huge, domineering gothic church. We walked the campus of the picturesque and historic University, and we meandered down the undulating cobblestones of Piazza Santo Stefano to the sound of a busking Accordion player.

Instead of a restaurant dinner we instead opted to take advantage of Italy’s Apertivo culture, where you get a selection of food when you buy a drink. We headed to one of the city’s best places for this, Via Pescherie Vecchie.

Walking down the street we are drawn immediately to the vast meat and cheese filled windows of La Baita Vecchia Malga. This is like the red-light district for meat and cheese lovers and I find myself immediately going in to take a peep!

Meat and Cheese Paradise

The deli style shop is filled from left to right, floor to ceiling, with hams, salame’s, wheels of cheese’s and all manner of other food goods. There is prosciutto hanging above your head, and the smell is awesome, it makes your mouth water just standing in this place.

Fortunately for us, they have seats outside where you can have a plate of freshly cut meats with a bit of tipple!

So, we ask for a sharing plate, with Mortadella, Culatello, Salame Fellini, Parmesan cheese and Carciotta cheese. The sharing plate also comes with little round, pitta like breads, called Tigelle, that you get here in Bologna, my wife has been talking about them all day, so I’m excited to try them.

Sublime Aperitivo in Bologna

Here’s a little bit about each meat item:

  • Mortadella (the pink one) — Mortadella is the basically a huge pork sausage which is cooked with spices and things like pistachio. The result is a deliciously delicate and widely appreciated flavour.
  • Culatello (the one at the bottom) — Some say Culatello is superior to proscuitto crudo (see Parma), im not convinced. Although don’t get me wrong, this is a delicious cured meat. Succulent and flavoursome, maybe I have not yet tasted the best of this.
  • Salame Fellini (the red and white one) — This is a good, tasty salame, however when eaten with authentic Mortadella and Culatello, the flavours seem underwhelming.

So imagine, we had these delicious meats, nice cheeses, and the tigelle’s (which by the way are served warm), what would you do in this situation? Savour the individual traits of each product, by slowly eating one at a time?

Ok, so I did that, and it was good, but do you know what was better? Combining them all between two halfs of a split tigelle and making the most delicious cheese and ham sandwich I have ever tasted. That’s right, I come to the gastronomy capital of Italy and im making cheese and ham sandwiches!

We repeated this process at another couple of places, which provided us with slightly different variants of meat and cheese, which were all delicious. We washed these down with a few glasses of Aperol Spritz and white wine and were stuffed and a little tipsy after the third place.

Bologna has so much to offer the food traveler. I can see why this place is renowned throughout Italy and for those foodies well informed, across the globe.

You can see more Italian food and culture adventures at my blog:

https://onceuponaplate.net/

Daniel McKenna

Written by

I am a food travel blogger currently living in Italy. I write stories about food, the culture and the wonderful places I am fortunate enough to visit.

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