Tag Archives: Salami

Eating Tuscany – Villa Breakfast

Location: Staggia, Italy

Date: June 11-25, 2011

Cuisine: Tuscan

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This is our third year renting a villa in Europe for a big chunk of June. I’ve experimented with different ways to handle the breakfast situation for a large number of people (9-15 is what we’ve had). It’s not practical to go out everyday, it would just take too long to wrangle everyone, and a free for all at the house (which we tried last year) has all sorts of issues. Namely the challenge of restocking the groceries and cleaning up. So, our houses at this year’s villa arranged to set and clear a continental breakfast table, to which we added some local products. Overall it worked out very well.


The first thing I need is my coffee. Cappuccino this time of morning. Our hosts made them, which was convenient as last year my dad was making them straight for 90 minutes every morning. Given that many people have two, and the slow speed of the little home machines, it’s hard to churn a lot of them out.


The full spread.


Various dry goods, yogurts, jams, cereal, orange juice.


Fruit, cookies, toast, blood orange juice (yum).


We also put out some of the local cheeses, mostly Pecorino.


And more.


And the stubs of all sorts of them.


A few cow cheeses from the local market.


No Italian breakfast is complete without Prosciutto.


Or Salami.


Our hosts also baked a variety of pastries and breads over the two weeks. Homemade croissants in this case.


A really yummy chocolate torte. Buttery crust, with congealed nuttella type filling.


We had some extra ricotta and our baker turned it into this wonderful cheesecake.


Chocolate inside, with a tasty crust and coco top. It was like breakfast tiramisu!


Pound cake.


Cherry tart.

Delicious chocolate cake, tasted like a giant brownie. Nothing like chocolate to pick you up in the morning.


Tuscan apple pie. Really good stuff, perhaps drier and more bready than the American version, halfway between that and an apple strudel. Delicious.


Blackberry tart. These kind of fruit tarts are typically Tuscan.


Mixed local fruit.


And cherries, which are local and in season.

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Eating Tuscany – Boar at Home

Location: Tuscany, Italy

Date: June 12, 2011

Cuisine: Tuscan

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During our day in Siena we picked up a few supplies.

Most notably, at the sign of the Cinghiale, the Tuscan wild boar.


This funny little gourmet shop sells all sorts of big products — plus some cheese and wine.


The don’t allow photos, but I stole this one of the inside. Zoome in and check out the salesman and his mustache!


Back at our temporary “home” we opened this old Barbaresco. One of my brother’s friends in Milano had given it to him thinking it wouldn’t be good anymore — being almost 40 years old — but lo and beyond it was delicious.


We did have to decant it to seperate out the sediment, but I managed to extract the cork (in 2 pieces) without loosing any.


At the boar shop we picked up two kinds of pecorino, this fresher one.


And this aged “good with old wine” one.

We also got some of this boar salami, pure wild pig mixed with Brunello!


And this “Panna Rustico” which is hearty bread with pecorino and pancetta baked into it. What more could you want with a nice old Italian wine but variants of pig and cheese?

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Eating Parma – Cocchi Ristorante

Restaurant: Cocchi Ristorante

Location: Parma, Italy

Date: June 6, 2011

Cuisine: Emilia Romagna

Rating: Amazing traditional!

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Today we ventured out to Parma, home of Parmesan and Prosciutto. We met up with a friend of a friend who took us for lunch to this local place for a spectacular traditional lunch.


Not too much to look at from the outside.


Inside we have a number of rooms, decorated in drawings and paintings from 20th century masters.


The opening bread are various baked cracker like things and thick breadsticks. These are light and crunchy.


Lambrusco is the local drink of choice for these occasions. This was described by our host as the “only Lambrusco Frizzante with subtly.” It tastes like sangra with more carbonation and less fruit.


The first course are just some plates of top notch young parmesan and…


Relatively fresh salame. These were both wonderful. The salame was soft, but very very meaty.


Next course is the traditional Parma way of eating crudo. On these sopapilla-like fried dough puffs.


Here is the ham. They had some name for it, perhaps cutello. It’s a kind of prosciutto, available only in Parma — very fresh. Served with a little butter. Eaten by itself the stuff was wonderfully light and tasty.


Shown here on the puff.

A variety of grilled vegetables.


This was a spectacular implementation of a classic local pasta. Homemade, stuffed with riccotta and spinach, and in a simple butter sauce.


It’s then doused with parmesan.

The tender inside.


Tuna with zucchini and balsamic drizzle.

Another traditional regional dish. Veal stuffed with prosciutto, and an egg and parmesan quiche-like filling. The potatoes were very salty but excellent for their type. This is a sort of the high end version of the dish I was often served as an American in Europe: fries and mystery meat.


An apple strudel-like dessert.


And the obligatory expresso.

The have quite the supply of grappa and the like.

This was one of the hands down best traditional local Italian meals I’ve had. Everything felt not only very typical, but the ingredients were top notch, and the food completely on-point.

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