Only so often does the chance to travel Italy with a culinary expert present itself.
Sean Timberlake, founder of Punk Domestics, About.com Preservation expert, and all around delightful and hilarious guy, is offering 2 amazing culinary travel adventures to Italy.
I am helping Sean get the word out about these unique artisan food explorations, which are ideal for food entrepreneurs and chefs to explore a new business or discover techniques, ingredients sources and and recipes to spice up your existing business.
THE TRIPS
October 2015 trip: Forage porcini mushrooms, make local preserves, learn to make hand-rolled pasta, revel at a fall truffle festival, and much more. (Plus, World Food Expo 2015 in Milan ends Oct 31, and so you’ll have time to catch it!)
Sean says: “Autumn is definitely the most exciting time to eat in Italy, with these amazing ingredients. I’ve been in country in the autumn many times, and it’s a magical time. The air is incredible.”
January 2015 trip: Work with a local butcher to turn a hog into salumi, learn to make hand-rolled pasta, and much more.
Q&A About the Italy Food Adventures
Who are these trips ideal for?
These trips are definitely for the person who loves food, and wants to get hands-on with it.
On both trips, we will be working with local food crafters in Emilia-Romagna to learn how to make traditional regional foods like a conserve called savòr, the local flatbread piadina, hand-rolled fresh pasta, and much more.
It’s not all work, though. We will be touring around to see how prosciutto, Parmigiano-Reggiano and balsamico are made, and of course plenty of eating along the way.
What are some of the most unique and memorable things from your past Italian food trips?
Working with these artisans is so remarkable (as you can read about in some posts). When we worked with the norcino to break down a 200-pound hog to make salumi, it was so impressive watching them cut away first huge slabs of fat, then carving ever more finely until they were shaving it away with a huge knife so delicately you could see the cell structure of the back side of the skin.
And none of us could hold a candle the the elbow grease the little old ladies put into making hand-rolled pasta into huge sheets so thin you could see through them. When we tried our hand at it, they’d come around, pinch to test for thickness, then cluck their tongue and say, “okay.” Clearly we needed more practice.
What are you most excited about?
Of course I’m excited to work with these artisans again, but even more excited for some new things I haven’t done yet.
We’ll be foraging for porcini in the Apennine mountains in October, and then going to a truffle festival in a medieval village.
While we will go west to experience the production of Parmigiano-Reggiano, prosciutto, and balsamico, all in Emilia, Romagna is home to a unique cheese called formaggio di fossa, aged in limestone pits, an autumnal conserve called savòr, made with fruits, nuts and saba, and piadina, a flatbread that’s something like the love child of a tortilla and a pita. It’s also home to the true lasagna!
What might aspiring food entrepreneurs take away that they could actually use in their business?
There’s a ton to take away here.
If you’re building a preserves business, we’ll be doing very traditional local jams and conserves that you won’t find outside the region. Piadina is an overlooked food, and could easily become a popular snack for a food truck or pop-up booth here.
Developing a touch for handmade pasta could set your restaurant apart from others. And if you have any interest in working with meat in any form, but most especially salumi, the day in our January trip with the norcino is like a one-day stage.
Will the Milan Expo fit into the trip or be convenient for a traveler to go to before or after?
We’ll be based in Emilia-Romagna, and will begin and complete our trip in Bologna.
Travelers could easily get from Milan to or from Bologna via high-speed rail, so the Expo (which ends October 31) would be a very good addition to the October trip.
Get all the details and ask Sean any questions. You’ll love him!
(He is NOT rewarding me for promoting this.)
