If there is ever an opportunity for a little side trip while I am in France, my first choice is always Italy. I love Italy. So when my sister said she wanted to take a trip to Europe with her friend to celebrate a milestone birthday, I selfishly said, “What about Italy?” Then, even more selfishly, I said, “And what about adding a stop in Bologna?”
I have been aching to go to Bologna for a very long time. So many of my experiences in Italy have been shared with my good friend Elspeth who has a lot of clients there, all in the food industry. She has the inside track on the best local eats anywhere in Italy. We’ve gone on many trips but haven’t yet managed to organize a time that works for les trois Canadiennes to go to Bologna together. So, I saw this as a golden opportunity to finally see Bologna and spend quality time with my sister. Win-win!
All the beautiful porticos of Bologna, they are everywhere. Bologna is home to the longest portico in the world.
Luckily, I had all of Elspeth’s best recommendations at my fingertips, so I knew there would be no end of deliciousness, and I was not disappointed. I adore pasta, especially freshly made and stuffed. Bologna is pasta heaven, famous for, of course, Bolognese (with tagliatelle) and stuffed tortellini served in many ways. Everywhere you look, there is pasta. But there is also mortadella and Parmesano Reggiano. This is the region for all these miracles of taste, and there is no end of options to eat and buy all of it.
Typically on these side trips, we try to include something cultural, so it’s not all about food & wine. This time I spent exactly zero time researching anything cultural. I was just focused on getting reservations at all the places E recommended. The rest be damned. But when I arrived, I saw a poster for cooking school. I can’t believe I never thought of something like it in advance, but as it turned out, there was space for us at a pasta-making class. After Google provided us the wrong address and directions, we managed to muddle our way to the school Sunday morning a little tardy. But in typical Italian style, it was no problem, calma. There were others even more tardy than us. Eventually, we got to making our pasta dough. I’ve made lots of pasta before, so the dough part wasn’t new to me, but I have never rolled it out by hand. We were given a mattarello almost as tall as I am, one would require a pretty enormous space to wield a metre-long piece of wood without damaging anything. It was so fun, and the large sheet of pasta ended up quite challenging to manage. But our lovely instructor gave us all kinds of excellent information on how to work with it. We cut our pasta into tagliatelle size (which is officially 7mm wide for it to be classified as tagliatelle) and it was cooked up and served with a traditional Bolognese ragu.
After more eating, drinking, and wandering, a belly overflowing with pasta and mortadella, more in my suitcase, and a huge chunk of 40-month-aged Parmesan, I left Bologna feeling every bit as in love with Italy as I ever have been. Maybe even a little more. A city whose whole reason for being is pretty much food is my kind of place. What a wonderful way to spend Thanksgiving with my sister, and I am enormously grateful for such a fabulous experience.
