Modena and Parma

The bugle sounded quite early in the morning, but muffled, distant, and not unpleasant. It sounds like classical music being played in another room, which is what I woke up to for about half of my childhood.

Observation: one of the few places where you can consistently get bad coffee in Italy is at a hotel breakfast bar. The coffee sits in a big tank and is probably instant; it tastes "off" in some way. The big tank of hot milk next to it doesn't help much. Along with coffee, I had two little mortadella sandwiches, some stewed prunes, “cereal” yogurt (which is what it sounds like), and grapefruit juice. Eric had some other sort of yogurt with his prunes, a ham and cheese sandwich, and orange juice. Aside from the nigh-undrinkable coffee, it was a pretty good breakfast.

Today Modena was much livelier than yesterday afternoon. We strolled about, stopping for coffee at Caffè dell'Orlogio, recommended as possibly the best caffè in Italy. It was certainly excellent. We stopped at a store to buy some fancy aceto balsamico for ourselves. We bought it from a helpful and chatty woman (at Caffè della Fortuna) who attempted to teach us all about balsamic vinegar. (She was a hoot.)

The Modenese accent is strikingly odd: whereas the /s/ sound is slightly retroflex, giving it a hint of a /š/ sound, the /ts/ sound (written z). is pronounced /θ/, as it is in Spanish from Spain. Grathie! I didn't get to make a clear study of it, mind you. I did notice that the /dz/ of zampone was pronounced as /dð/, like dthampone. It's sort of odd, like people are lisping around us. Or like there's some hidden cache of Spaniards here.

Anyway, we headed out on the Via Emilia, one of the great ancient roads of Italy. Driving it is not that exciting, though. It's basically a road like any other. We took the Via Emilia all the way to Parma.

Our hotel in Parma is pretty swanky, though the room stinks of cigarettes. It's just outside the historic center.

Parma is sort of odd in many ways, but I like it. The riverbed is broad and shallow, and green – grass from one side to the other. It must flood in the spring or something, but there's no river there now. The center of town feels oddly disorganized, but still nice. There's a university, so there are a lot of students. The best reason to come here is for the food; it's why we came 8 years ago, and why we are back now.

We ate lunch in a simple trattoria (Trattoria da Filippo), downstairs from a pizzeria. It was the least formal place we've eaten at yet. We shared a crocheta di patate (potato croquette) first; then Eric had a ham and artichoke pizza, and I had tortelli d'erbette (ravioli stuffed with ricotta and greens, probably spinach). Both were delicious, and we left satisfied but not stuffed.

We wandered around town a bit, spending a good bit of time in the lovely ducal park. (I don't know why it is I enjoy going to public parks in foreign cities so much. Sure, they are all different, but they are still all parks. They aren't different the way food is different, for example.)

We didn't take in the standard sights — the cathedral, the baptistry — because we saw them last time, and didn't feel like it today.

Eventually we found our way back to the hotel to change before dinner. For dinner, we'd decided on a place we'd eaten at 8 years ago, Trattoria Corrieri. It looks a bit big and slick (lots of dining space), so I was concerned that it wouldn't be as good as we remembered it, but it was fantastic. I started with salumi misti, which included salami, prosciutto, mortadella, and other things. One of them, something a bit like coppa, was particularly fabulous. Next came the pasta course: tortelli di zucca for Eric, and tris di tortelli (trio of raviolis: zucca — pumpkin, erbetta — greens, and something whose exact name I've forgotten — spalla something — that's a little like a ground ham). They were fabulous, and as good a lunch was, these ravioli were better. The only failing was the lack of sage for the pumpkin ravioli. After that course, Eric had a vegetable frittata, which was good. I skipped the next course, having had the salumi, but I'd ordered a contorno of peperonata, cooked bell peppers, and they chose to bring it to me as if it were a full course. It was a little odd to eat it that way, but it was still pretty tasty. We drank a bottle of Dolcetto d'Alba and some bubbly water, plus two coffees at the end.

We paid at the door on the way out (why do they do it that way? don't know). Unlike our usual generalized bills, this receipt was fully itemized, and so we could see, after leaving, that it was an utter and complete work of fiction. Though we leaned over the owner as he entered stuff into the computer, helping him where he couldn't read the waitress's notes, he got it about 90% wrong. Tagliatelle ragù? Nope. ½ pitcher Sangiovese? Nope. We stood out by the door, checking against the menu, and concluded in the end that he'd undercharged us by €2 — not worth going in to correct. Still, it was startlingly wrong. We are sure he was reading off the right notes from the waitress, so what gives? Eh. Anyway, it was still a fabulous meal.

We thought we might buy some gelato on the way back to the hotel if we saw some that looked good, but we didn't. Parma is a great food town, but apparently not a gelato town.

Labels: food, italy, journal, personal

posted by Tony at 11:59 PM