Italian Food Lovers

The Verdi Festival 2007, dedicated to the famous Italian opera composer and director Giuseppe Verdi by the City of Parma, Italy, closed yesterday October 31, after a month-long of opera shows and collateral events dedicated to the Italian Maestro.

The Festival has has been a triumph, not only because all the shows, including some of the most famous Italian Operas such as La Traviata, Aida, Rigoletto and Luise Miller, were sold out; the collateral events, in which Academia Barilla was fully involved, have been looked after and talked about as some of the most precious moments of the Festival.

The gourmet side of the Festival has been crafted to art, also in honor to Maestro Verdi, who was a notorious gourmet foodie - if he were among us now, sure he would be reading Italian Food Lovers!

Giuseppe Verdi, son of an osteria owner, knew several traditional recipes and is known for giving detailed instructions to her lifetime cook Ermelinda Berni, so that she could excel in both cooking and presentation.

Academia Barilla, who dedicates part of its commitment in the promotion of traditional Italian gastronomy, created in 2004 the first and more comprehensive Gastronomic Library in the world, with more than 8,000 titles (same of which very rare and dating back to the 17th century) dedicated to the Italian food culture, but actually embracing a worldwide knowledge on culinary, gastronomy, and food culture.

Giancarlo Gonizzi, the responsible and creator of Academia Barilla’s Gastronomic Library, honored Giuseppe Verdi at the Verdi Festival with a dedicated exhibition of traditional recipes from the Verdi times, that actually got prepared and presented to the Festival guests by amazing Chefs of the Academia Barilla Culinary School.

Academia Barilla Chef Roberto Ronzoni, here in the picture, guided a team of gourmet Chef from the Culinary school to prepare incredible historic menus for the Verdi Festival, including typical dishes known to be among the Maestro’s favorites.
Reporter Maria Celeste Crucilla’, from the popular Italian magazine Oggi, wrote a very nice article last week about the historic menu created by the Academia Barilla team for the Verdi Festival.

Among the several creations of the Academia Barilla team for the Verdi Festival, we would like to talk about three of them, Verdi’s favorite dishes: Mortified Wild Duck (Faraona Mortificata), Flan with Spalla Cotta (Flan with Cooked Ham), and Cacio Bavarese (Bavarian Cheese Dessert).

The Mortified Wild Duck (Faraona Mortificata) gets its name from the fact that the Faraona (Wild duck) would have been hung from his feet for a few days to macerate, before getting stuffed with Parmigiano-Reggiano, eggs, crumbled bread, Prosciutto di Parma, Italian parsley, basil, salt and pepper.

Flan with Spalla Cotta (Flan with Cooked Ham) definitly was the Maestro’s favorite dish. The flan is made with Parmigiano-Reggiano, and the ham, in the traditional recipe, is the typical “Spalla di San Secondo“, a special cut from the pork’s shoulder that is generally served in thin slices.

Giuseppe Verdi was so passionate about this dish that he would always bring it as a present to his close friends, and teaching them how to make it according to the traditional recipe. In a letter from April 27, 1872, to his friend Conte Oprandino Arrivabene, Giuseppe Verdi gives all the instructions on how to cook the ham at its best:

“Before cooking it on the fire, you must take most of the salt off, just leave the ham for two hours in water. Then boil it on fire, in a pot filled with water. Slow-flame cook it for 6 hours, then leave it resting in his soup until cold. When cold, take the ham from the pot, dry it, and eat it”.

Cacio Bavarese (Bavarian Cheese Dessert) is also known as The Bishop’s Flan, and traditionally made with finger biscuits (Savoiardi, try the Pavesini, also a classic main ingredient for Tiramisu’, at our online shop). Savoiardi get soaked in white wine from the Parma hills and Ron, then alternated with vanilla-chocolate cream and cherry marmalate. To be served with a zabaglione cream like your (Italian) mother used to make!

See you at the next Verdi Festival in Parma, October 2008! We will be surely talking a lot about it next year, as we did this year!

Well, this Parma Google Map is technically the same Map we recently published.

Newly released functionalities on Google Maps now allow us to integrate our customized Italian Food Valley Google Maps, gourmet tours and itineraries on Italian Food Lovers, and you will be able to browse the photos and video we posted on Google Maps directly from here!

Check it out! Just click on the placemarks to discover Parma a little bit more!

View Larger Map on Google Maps

Remember also that the best way to visit Parma is discovering its cultural and culinary treasures with Academia Barilla. The Academia Barilla Culinary Center in Parma organizes gourmet tours and culinary learning vacations in Parma and the surrounding Italian Food Valley.

Check out also the Opera Verdi Tours we have largely introduced this summer on the blog - tour dates are approaching fast, and you can find all booking info here.

The Festival Verdi 2007, dedicated by the city of Parma, Italy, to the Italian Opera Maestro Giuseppe Verdi, and celebrated by Academia Barilla with the release of an Italian opera and gourmet cooking 5-days travel package, starts in few weeks on October 1st, to close on October 31.

Remember that Academia Barilla’s tours are limited to the duration of the Verdi Festival and for the month of October 2007 only, so we suggest making today your reservations for this unforgettable Italian gourmet cooking and opera experience.

The tour dates are scheduled upon the following calendar for this year’s Verdi Festival:

- October 6-10
- October 10-14
- October 16-20
- October 21-25

More details on the Italian opera and gourmet cooking tour, including booking info, are available at this link on the Academia Barilla website.

This is the last installment in the saga of The Ultimate Italian Travel Experience, the Italian opera and gourmet cooking virtual tour designed by our Italian Food Lovers blogging team to anticipate the real gourmet travel package, launched by Academia Barilla.

The tour is designed to better experience the lifestyle, the culture and the food of Parma and the Italian Food Valley, while attending the world-famous opera Festival dedicated to Giuseppe Verdi next October 2007.

After discovering the treasures of Parma and attending the first opera concert on the first two days, and exploring the land and history of Maestro Giuseppe Verdi on day three, on day four our guests will head out of town again to re-discover the Italian Food Valley region, this time with a gastronomic tour, hunting for the most hidden production secrets of some of the top gourmet Italian food products.

Day four will start with a visit to a traditional Parmigiano-Reggiano producer that will include of course a Parmigiano tasting session.

Next gourmet production secrets will be unveiled during the visit to an artisan Salumificio that produces, among many different kind of hams and salami, the precious Culatello di Zibello. A tasting session under the guidance of an Italian Culinary Specialist from the Academia Barilla Culinary School will be part of the guided tour in the Salumificio.

More traditional Italian gourmet food is on the agenda, with a lunch in a local restaurant of the Medieval burg of Fontanellato, organized by Academia Barilla after the visit to Rocca Sanvitale, one of the most beautiful castles of Northern Italy, that treasures paintings and frescoes of Parmigianino.

We really love Fontanellato, and we invite you to explore it more in details by checking the customized Google Map we designed and enriched with photos to give you a preview of this magic place, that surely deserves a real visit, not just a virtual one. Click this link or the Google Map image below to interact with places and pictures of Fontanellato.

You can also explore Fontanellato browsing our Flickr.com photo album - click on the image below to see all the pictures we took for you from outside, inside and around the beautiful medieval opera castle.

After the lunch organized by Academia Barilla, the group will return to Parma for a free afternoon. Guests can choose to either relax with some shopping in one of the most exclusive fashion outlets in Italy, or keep discovering on their own the beauties of the City of Parma.

Don’t forget we have plenty of content for you from Parma, such as interactive Google Maps with photo and videos, Flickr.com photo albums, and online picture slideshows. Click the Google Maps, Flickr and Slide images in this post to get to the interactive content.

We invite you to include, link or embed our online content in your blogs and website - just mention Academia Barilla and, if possible, let us know you are linking to us, we’ll be so happy we’ll definitely link you back!
If you don’t know how to include, link or embed videos and other interactive content, feel free to ask as for help, we are learning fast here at Italian Food Lovers, so we can share with you some of our blog tech knowledge!

The evening of day four is dedicated to an opera concert from the Verdi Festival calendar. The Verdi’s opera, either La Traviata or Louise Miller, will be based on the festival calendar and ticket availability.

After the show and before the guests will return to their hotel, Academia Barilla will host a farewell dinner for the group’s guests, with exclusive gourmet menus designed by the Academia Barilla Executive Chefs.

The next day, day 5 of the tour, tour guests will be free to check out from their hotels or choose to stay few more days in Parma (highly recommended strategic location to explore more than 20 castles in the Italian Food Valley region).

Academia Barilla will be running these exclusive Italian opera and gourmet cooking tours for 5 weeks only, some might even want to participate again to the next tour and get more traveling, visiting, cooking and operas!

We hope you enjoyed the blog virtual tour of The Ultimate Italian Travel Experience - you can find all the info for the real October 2007 only tours, plus booking information, at this link on AcademiaBarilla.com.

Stay tuned with Italian Food Lovers!.

This Italian food Lovers virtual tour of the Ultimate Italian Travel Experience proposed by Academia Barilla is really growing our excitement towards what the real tour experience will be, as the dates of the Verdi Festival are approaching (October 2007).

After covering day one and two with the previous ultimate Italian travel experience post we now enter day three, which is dedicated to the history of the Maestro Giuseppe Verdi in Parma and in the surrounding Italian Food Valley region.

Our tour guests will leave their hotels in the morning to visit the Terre Verdiane, starting with Roncole, where we’ll visit the home where Giuseppe Verdi was born (today a Verdi Museum) and the church where he received the first music lessons.

Next stop is the famous Verdi’s Theatre and a visit to the Barezzi’s House & Hall in Busseto, the headquarters of the Busseto Filarmonica, where Verdi emerged as a young composer. A typical lunch based on local and traditional antipasti has been arranged by Academia Barilla in a characteristic restaurant in Busseto where Verdi’s music is constantly played.

One of the highlights of the restaurant, beside its gourmet traditional Italian food, is the famous guest book with signature collections that include those of Giuseppe Verdi and his friends, the singer Teresa Stolz, the publisher Giulio Ricordi, Ottorino Respighi, Arturo Toscanini, Gabriele D’Annunzio and a variety of singers, painters, writers and gourmets from all over the world.

The afternoon will continue with a visit of Orlandi’s Palace, a building that the Maestro bought in the centre of Busseto, and to Villa Sant’Agata where Verdi, already rich and famous, had this beautiful residence built and where he lived for almost half century.

The cultural opera tour in the Italian Food Valley will end back in Parma for a gourmet dinner organized by Academia Barilla in a typical restaurant in the city center.

As we did with the previous post we have also designed the day’s itinerary on Google maps, so you can start looking from above at the beautiful places you will discover during this unforgettable gourmet opera tour.

View Larger Map

Also have a look at the pictures we published on Academia Barilla’s account on Flickr.com, so you can start familiarize with Roncole, Busseto, Fontanellato, and the precious Italian Food Valley. Just click on the image below to see the pictures.

We will cover day 4 of the Ultimate Italian Travel Experience soon, but you can get more details including booking info at this page.