Italian Food Lovers

We have been blogging a lot in the past about Academia Barilla’s gourmet and gastronomy tours in Parma and Emilia-Romagna, as well as the several initiatives from the Academia Barilla Culinary Center such as the culinary learning vacations that conjugate the pleasure of discovering Italian culture and food tradition with the ultimate experience of learning how to cook with top Italian Chefs.

We also blogged several times about other Academia Barilla initiatives that put together Italian food and culture - and no, we don’t mean “just” Italian food culture, but actually gourmet food plus Italian culture, such as in the gourmet cultural tours proposed by Academia Barilla to discover historic and artistic landmarks, contemporary art or classic opera.

Talking about which, we can anticipate that also for this year Academia Barilla will offer gourmet luxury packages to enjoy the Festival Verdi 2008, dedicated to the Italian Opera Maestro Giuseppe Verdi. We’ll blog about it soon, stay tuned!

We are not the only one blogging about the Academia Barilla gourmet, cultural and culinary tours to Italy. The Academia Barilla Culinary Center in Parma, Italy, is listed as a top culinary destination by several Italian food websites and directories, such as ChicagoTribune.com, Cooking In Italy, Alta Cucina and GreatEveryDayWines.com, among others. Not to mention of course Gourmet Magazine, who recently ranked the Academia Barilla Culinary Center among the world’s best cooking schools, among the top 5 in the world in the Luxury category. 

If you want to get more info and details about the cultural, culinary and gastronomic tours of Academia Barilla please get in touch with Academia Barilla in Parma at +39 0521 264060 (toll-free number from Italy 800 376-116), or in the United States at the US toll-free number 1-866-772-2233.

We also already talked about our VIP tours, too, as in the recent case of Lynn Novo’s VIP gourmet tour to Parma, organized by Chef and food entrepreneur Lynn Novo from Atlanta, Georgia.

The Academia Barilla VIP tours are luxury guided cultural and culinary tours designed by Academia Barilla and managed by Academia Barilla Culinary School Alumni such as Lynn Novo or Frank DiMaria, who is organizing a new VIP tour from Chicago, Illinois.

Over the next few weeks we will publish a series of blog posts that will help recreate the experience, albeit in a virtual way, proposed by the Academia Barilla VIP tour organized and guided by Frank DiMaria. For the moment, we anticipate that there will be a lot of cooking, but also visits to local artisan food producers, Medieval castles, the Ferrari Museum, and guided tours to the historic and monument beauties of the cities of Parma and Bologna.

Stay tuned for the next blog posts. If you want to book or get more info on this specific Academia Barilla VIP tour, please call Frank DiMaria at all +1 847-965-0672 or email frankdimaria@comcast.net to reserve your space!

Last December a group of American students from NY Universities (Monroe College and Paul Smith College, NY) spent some time in Parma to study Italian Cuisine at the Academia Barilla Culinary Center .

The group of students were headed by Giacomo Berselli, President of the Marco Polo Foundation, the organization who sponsored the students’ trip to Italy. After spending 7 weeks in Otranto (Puglia) and 3 weeks in Ferrara (Emilia-Romagna), the students attended cooking classes at the Academia Barilla Culinary School in Parma for additional 2 weeks.

During their Parma residency the US students of the Marco Polo project studied the typical products of the Parma region, and attended classes of olive oil tasting, Parmigiano Reggiano and Prosciutto di Parma tasting, as well as Balsamic Vinegar of Modena and wine tasting. After theory and tasting classes in the morning the young Chefs spent some time researching Academia Barilla’s Gastronomic Library, with the support of the Library Curator Giancarlo Gonizzi and his team.
The afternoon were generally spent in the kitchen, trying dishes and recipes containing the ingredients the students have been working on all day, under the guidance of Academia Barilla Executive Chef Nicola Bindini and his Chef team.

To complete the students’ full immersion into the art of Italian gastronomy, Academia Barilla organized also culinary and gastronomy tours for the students, allowing them to discover the secrets of producers and farmers of authentic regional products, and to meet the countryside traditions and history of the Emilia-Romagna region, that certainly is a key ingredient of our traditional recipes.

At the end of the 2 weeks of classes the Academia Barilla Culinary School released to each student a certificate of completion of studies that, join with the other certificates awarded by the students at the other learning locations across Italy, would have grant them the formal recognition of the exams and classes by their respective original colleges (Monroe College and Paul Smith College, both in the NY State).

Here below a couple of testimonial notes from the Marco Polo students, as written on the Academia guest book, pictured here above with more Marco Polo testimonials:

“Thank you Barilla for such an informative 2 weeks. I enjoyed myself thoroughly would tell my family friends about this wonderful place. Thank you so much.”

“Ciao, this school has taught me that food to the Italian is religion and the kitchen is their church. Thank you Academia Barilla.”

To know more about the student program we interviewed Marco Polo Foundation President Giacomo Berselli who firmly says that “Academia Barilla is state-of-the-art of the Italian Cuisine“!

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Alright, enough talk of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, now let’s taste it – right from the source!
Here are some tasting guides we use in the Academia Barilla test kitchens to sample Parmigiano. Try this at home next time you open a wheel or break off a chunk.

1) Aroma – what does the cheese smell like? Break off a chunk – does the smell change?

2) Taste – insert a small chunk of cheese into your mouth and let it warm up. I usually count to about 10, and then smash the cheese on the upper roof of my mouth, being sure to let all of the flavors melt out and coat my mouth. What do you taste? Is the cheese salty, sweet, acidic, tangy, fruity or bitter?

3) Aroma, again - smell the cheese, but this time from inside your mouth. Does the back of your mouth pick up different fragrances than when you smelled it originally with your nose? Does that reflect itself in the taste of the cheese?

4) Texture – note how the texture of the cheese has changed since you originally put a chunk in your mouth. After 5 seconds, or even 10, does the cheese still hold its original form? After you smash it against the roof of your mouth, are there still smaller granules you taste?

I won’t say that what I experience in Parmigiano cheese tasting is in any way definitive, since each person’s taste is different. However, whenever I taste a perfect Parmigiano, I am reminded of the scents of Hay, as well as of the market cheese shop, and then the flavors of sweet/salty/nutty Parmigiano. I know, that’s a terrible description, but, after growing up with Parmigiano on a near-daily basis….there’s nothing quite like it in the world.

Academia Barilla has these notes, and others, in the cheese tasting guide published on AcademiaBarilla.com.

Now, if you’re planning on coming to Italy any time soon, there are a few excellent resources on where to go to see traditional Parmigiano-Reggiano production, as well as tasting of this excellent traditional Italian gourmet food product.

For all intents and purposes, the links and resources below represent only a few possible places you can look for further information about visiting casefici of Parmigiano-Reggiano in Italy. And, with the clear and distinct exception of the Academia Barilla experiences listed below, Academia Barilla makes no endorsement of any of the following links, resources, or places.

Academia Barilla – Parma, Italy

Come to Italy and learn from the best – Academia Barilla! Our expert staff will be happy to show you around the beautiful Emilia-Romagna region and take you directly to some of the locations where we make Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.

In addition, we offer cooking classes to teach you the details and intricacies of this beautiful product. If you’re only in Italy for a limited time, come visit us and we’ll jam-pack your Parmigiano experience into one culinary learning vacation you’ll remember forever.
Consorzio del Formaggio Parmigiano-Reggiano – Parma, Italy, and environsThis organization is dedicated to all things Parmigiano, and has been since its inception over a century ago.It maintains lists of all of the dairies that produce Parmigiano, including Academia Barilla’s contracted dairies, and offers resources on how to get in touch with them. An excellent resource if you’re exploring Parma, Emilia-Romagna and the north-central of Italy on your own.Can’t make it to Italy? Well, luckily, Academia Barilla has your connection to the best cheeses from Italy, and you can sample traditional and authentic Parmigiano-Reggiano DOP cheese and other Italian DOP gourmet products by simply visiting our online store.

Part of the job here at Academia Barilla in Parma is to lead cooking classes, and I am one of the chefs that does a regular rotation teaching our customers, friends and visitors about traditional Italian gourmet food.We can cover pretty much every subject in the Academia Barilla instruction kitchens, and each lesson we teach has traditional Italian food as its base. That means you can learn about how to hand make pasta in the traditional Italian style (or better yet, Parma style!), or learn about Winter stews and their importance to Italian culture, while spending time at our beautiful campus.

If you want to get a little more advanced, we can even lead courses on “Italian Sushi” – maybe not as traditional as pasta, but still using traditional Italian cooking technique in a contemporary way.

We also teach about fine dining and entertaining, proper wine pairings and general wine education, and other classes. Our full Custom Courses catalog for the Academia can be found here.

If you’re interested in taking a course with us here at our Culinary Institute, you should first give our American Academia Barilla office a ring at +1 (866)772-2233. They’ll be able to help you choose the best course for you. We’ll love to have you here at our school.

Don’t forget that Academia Barilla also does gastronomic tours of the surrounding region here in Parma. You can visit the places where Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, or Prosciutto di Parma ham are made on a daily basis. Learn more about those tours here.

Above all, whenever you choose to come just to visit Academia Barilla you’ll be assured of a good time with great food in one of the best culinary locations in the world!!

Buon appetito, and Felice Anno Nuovo (Happy New Year) from the Academia Barilla blog team!!!