A Whirlwind Tour of Italy’s Food Museums

The last bastion of the four-hour lunchbreak, the home of Slow Food, the birthplace of the world’s first University of Gastronomic Sciences, Italy is almost certainly the world’s most food-obsessed country. And Emilia-Romagna is, without a doubt, its single most food-obsessed province.

And so, logically enough, it is home to at least five food museums, not all of them quite where you’d expect them to be. The Ham Museum is not in Parma but a little town called Langhirano; the Balsamic Vinegar Museum eschews Modena for Spilamberto; the Museum of Parmigiano-Reggiano (that’s parmesan, to you) resides in Soragna; although the Salami Museum is, helpfully enough, in Felino.

In Modena we, mainly, eat. Artichokes in wondrously different herb mixes; spaghetti alla vongole, a riot of parsley and garlic; a bizarre Modenese salami cobbled together from other salamis; prosciutto by the bucket-load; light, pillowy pastries they call gnocchi; fresh, ripe peaches; and, in the spiritual home of balsamic vinegar, steak in balsamic, salad with balsamic, and even gelato with balsamic. (It’s a thing!)

Driblets of transformational raisiny, cypressy, piney balsamics, some of which sell for tens of euros a bottle, on tiny plastic spoons.

The Balsamic Vinegar Museum is, in its way, extremely Italian. It charts the history of balsamic vinegar from Roman times to the moment, around the time of reunification, that Italy’s gourmets thought it wise to codify their regional specialities.

No one else is visiting that day, so we get a custom tour. We learn about the ageing process that balsamic undergoes, in different-sized barrels of different woods — some of the good stuff is aged for decades.

And then our guide calls the owner of the store across the way to open up for a custom tasting, driblets of transformational raisiny, cypressy, piney balsamics, some of which sell for tens of euros a bottle, on tiny plastic spoons.

After some debate, we opt for a sweet organic kind – only a few years old – to bring back to Blighty as a gift for Granny.

It is, we conclude, “for tourists”. We are, I realise, becoming spoilt.

“You know,” says Zac meditatively, as we engage with our tasting plate at the Ham Museum, a shrine to the pigs of Italy. “I actually don’t really like proper Parmesan.”

“I know what you mean,” I say, grappling with the oddly granular chunks and tangy bite. “It’s just too strong a flavour, isn’t it?”

It’s blasphemy, but I secretly almost prefer the blander, smoother types we get in Blighty to these explosively flavoursome chunks of cheese. Although, as Zac observes, they do work well when dipped in balsamic.

We plough our way through the tasting plate, still seeking ham nirvana – particularly since we now understand the processes by which the prosciuotto acquires its flavour. It’s not as delicate as the Cinta di Senese prosciutto we had in Pisa, nor as ripe and powerful as the 40-month aged variety we had at I Rusteghi, Venice.

It is, we conclude, “for tourists”. We are, I realise, becoming spoilt.

Yes, there is a place called Felino, and, no, the salami doesn’t have to be made there, any more than cheddar cheese has to be made in Cheddar.

In the bowels of a particularly forbidding fortress, on a hilltop up above Felino – and, yes, there is a place called Felino, and, no, the salami doesn’t have to be made there, any more than cheddar cheese has to be made in Cheddar – we snigger over a video of sausage-casings being filled, and learn about the medieval etiquette around salami.

We eschew the cultural delights of Parma for lunch at Antichi Sapori, a little trattoria in a quiet village that, even on a Monday, is already filling up with flawlessly dressed Italians.

I check another animal off my list of things to eat before I die – horse, a speciality of Parma, served bloody and delicious on a bed of candied potatoes and peppers. It tastes, for the record, like beef with the teensiest hint of venison.

Zac chows down on yet more Vitamin P, my deconstructed Mojito for dessert, and an absolutely gorgeous basil gelato served with meringues in fresh berry jus.

I look, mournfully, at the flawlessly dressed Italian child dining neatly with his family at the table across from us. Between us, we need to up our sartorial game a little.