Bologna la Grassa

Bologna's third nickname, "La Grassa", proved during our visit to be at least as well justified as the other two. From the moment we arrived to the moment we left, every meal was delicious, as were the many snacks we had in between.

On our first night, we went out for drinks before dinner and discovered that Bologna has adopted the Milanese concept of aperitivo with gusto. Our friends claimed that it's still more difficult to have an entire meal for the price of your drink than in Milan, but we were nevertheless plied with delicious snacks which were extremely hard to resist, especially as our hosts were friendly with the bar owners, meaning that it would have been rude to refuse.

Which would have been fine, except that we had reservations for later on for a pizzeria in Via San Vitale (which I think was probably Spacca Napoli but I'm so behind in writing up this blog that I can't guarantee the recommendation.). Despite the reservation, we still had to queue for our table, but after about fifteen minutes we squeezed our way past the waiting crowds, inhaling the delicious aromas of tomato sauce and melting cheese, to the small room at the back where tables, chairs and customers jostle for space to consume the restaurant's ENORMOUS pizzas. The sensible thing to do would have been to follow the example of the group of girls behind us, who ordered one pizza between about four of them, but we weren't sensible and ended up with our own individual pizzas that were so big there was barely room for the glasses on the table. Luckily the restaurant was happy enough to wrap up the leftovers for us to take home, but I learned a useful lesson: if you plan to do this, don't order the pizza with fresh rocket and parmesan, because it's probably the only one that won't taste great when you take it out of the fridge the next day.

On our second day, we worked up an appetite by climbing the Torre d'Asinelli, before going for lunch at Bracce, another Neapolitan restaurant also in Via San Vitale. Understanding Frenchman had the tagliatelle al ragu', which is the authentic version of the dish known to the anglophone world as spaghetti bolognese. I had some generously filled pasta which was supposed to have ricotta inside, but a pumpkin one also got in by accident and it was delicious too, so I would highly recommend either one. We were too full for dessert, but they did bring us limoncello to finish off with, and even my friend who doesn't really like limoncello drank it and said that it wasn't bad. Bracce was also the restaurant with the waiter who really should have been an actor, who after discovering where Understanding Frenchman was from, spent the whole time we were there doing a very funny impression of a Parisian waiter, while simultaneously talking to my friend in German because he had decided she had a German accent when she spoke Italian.

The final gastronomical delight that we encountered in Bologna was breakfast. In the culinary capital of Italy, even the brioche are more solid, more cake-y and more buttery than elsewhere, and even more delicious. It was probably just as well that we left after three days, although not without taking plenty of Parma ham and parmesan cheese with us!

Say Formaggio

Once upon a time, many moons ago, I promised to write a post about Italian cheese. The other day, after being baffled by the range of delights in my local French cheese shop, where I spent 30 euros on 5 smelly concoctions that I didn't even know the names of (to justify myself, mostly to my mother, I should say that I was going to a dinner party and had offered to bring the cheese course!), I decided that Italian cheese was a slightly more approachable subject than French. So here is the post – Formaggio for Beginners.

The two most famous Italian cheeses must be mozzarella and Parmesan. The best mozzarella is made from buffalo milk. Good mozzarella has a delicate, creamy flavour, but in the bad versions the taste quickly becomes bland. I've often been surprised by how good basic supermarket mozzarella can be, but it varies a lot, so experiment!

Parmesan is the matured version of Grana Padano. The name “Padano” comes from the Pianura padana, or valley of the Po river, where it's made. Interestingly but unrelatedly, the name La Padania was appropriated by the Lega Nord as a possible name for a separate northern Italy and the area sends sports teams to competitions for nations that are not officially recognised. Grana Padano cheese is common in Italy but in the UK, most people have heard more about Parmesan, the real version of which tastes nothing like the dry flakes we used to sprinkle from a tube on to spaghetti bolognese when I was a child in the 80s. Italians do sprinkle it on pasta, soup, risotto and pretty much any primi piatti that aren't made with fish, but you can also eat it in small chunks by itself or, even better, with slices of Parma ham.

Asiago is another one of my favourites. Like mozzarella, it's mild, so when it's good it's very good but when it's bad it can be tasteless, and you find it everywhere. It exists in an aged form, but I never tasted it.

Provolone is also common. It comes in two kinds, dolce and piccante. The texture is quite like Emmental and the dolce version tastes similar. “Piccante” means “spicy”, but it's not hot, it just has more of an aged flavour. I never particularly liked it either, but maybe that's just personal taste.

Mr A and I used to call Scamorza “penis cheese”. On reflection, this is pretty gross, but it was only because the first ones we ever saw did bear a striking resemblance to penises. Actually, it's a smoky cheese that tastes delicious and melts nicely on to pizza.

Toma and Taleggio are two creamy mountain cheeses. Most of the Taleggio I had was stronger than the Toma but the texture is similar. Like all the others, these are cows' milk cheeses. I'm not a huge fan of goats' cheese (caprino) and didn't come across much sheep's cheese (pecorino) but the different regional varieties of both could make up a blog post in themselves. Interestingly enough, when I looked up the origins of all the cheeses I ate regularly, they were all relatively local to Milan – mostly from Lombardy, the Veneto or Piemonte – so the shops and markets in the South might well sell a completely different selection. I plan to go there again eventually, and I promise to do some research!

CioccolaTo

It was Saturday evening. It had been a lazy day. After a long lie-in, I had been to the market with Mr A, we had lounged around the house, cooked dinner and watched some TV. The weather forecast for Sunday was nice and Mr A's car needed a day out somewhere, so we were discussing possible places we could go without much enthusiasm. Nearly everything here shuts on a Sunday, and unless you know what you're looking for, it's very easy to end up visiting a ghost town and having to promise yourself that you'll go back another day when you might see something more than closed shutters and deserted streets.

Then Mr A, who was browsing on the internet, said, “There's a chocolate festival in Turin.”

“Eureka!” I shouted. “Take me, take me, take me! Drive me down that autostrada like an Italian on speed, for I do not want to miss a minute of it!”

Actually, being British and reserved, I probably said, “That sounds nice,” but Mr A understood the hidden subtext and so, first thing on Sunday morning, we found ourselves on the way to Turin.

The fact that the main market part of the fair was not on any of the three squares listed on the official website caused me to recall with some anxiety my last visit to Turin, but we eventually found it on the Piazza Vittorio Veneto.

The theme of this year's festival was “Chocolate and Seduction” and, if we had been there on another day, we could have listened to experts on one or other subject discussing the links between the two in a series of talks, but Mr A and I were really just there for the chocolate. And boy, did we find it. The whole piazza was filled with stalls selling chocolate in every shape and form, from traditional but exquisite Easter eggs to chocolate salami tied up with string.

Unfortunately, at this point I lost my appetite and began to feel a bit dizzy. This was not my body trying to protect me from my brain's natural gourmandise, but the effects of some evil germs that had clearly decided to invade my body with particularly cruel timing. It probably did my wallet and my waistline a lot of good, however, as I ended up only having a restrained but very delicious cinnamon hot chocolate and a bite of Mr A's chocolate kebab (slices of different pralines wrapped up in sweet bread and covered in whipped cream and caramel sauce. Mmm...).We also bought some gorgeous chocolates to take home, which came in very handy on Monday night when my appetite returned to normal and my body suddenly realised what it had missed out on.

As well as being famous for its chocolate, Turin is also the home of Lavazza coffee, and when I didn't feel like standing up any longer, we went into a coffee shop to try some. Like many Italian products, it did seem to be better in its home town.

Sunday was also International Women's Day and there was another market in Turin which was supposed to be for products made and sold by women but where we also found a stall manned by two burly men who gave us grappa to try from bottles decorated with pictures of other burly men, this time with moustaches. In Italy, it's traditional to give mimosa flowers on this day. There were plenty of people selling wrapped blossoms on the street, but after walking past them all afternoon, I allowed myself to be taken in by some guy in a car park who offered me a tiny piece “as a present” and then said “but could you give me some money for a drink?” After a day filled with delicious chocolate and coffee, I wasn't really in the mood to mind.