In one of our Liguria tourist brochures we found a brief reference to a brewery in Busalla, a little town just north of Genova. Any mention of beer in Italy has a way of jumping out at us. The brewery was a bit of a phantom, though, because we couldn’t find any more information about it. After confirming with our friends that the brewery does indeed exist we decided to seek it out for ourselves.

Armed with nothing more than images of fresh brewed beer bouncing through our minds and off our eager taste buds, we arrived in Busalla. It was lunch time, which in Italy, especially in the smaller towns, means that everyone is shuttered-up in their homes and seated around the dinner table for at least a couple hours. There’s also no tourist information office in Busalla, so we were on our own to find a way to the brewery.

We took a left out of the train station and headed towards the center of town, hoping to pass an informative map or street sign. Unfortunately, we had no such luck. We wandered through the streets of Busalla for at least another hour, following the main street from one end of the town to the other, and making a detour over a bridge across the river to a examine cluster of signs that turned out to have nothing more relevant than a banner advertising a beer festival in a different town on a previous week-end.

Finally, we came to our senses and asked a kind woman at the train station newspaper stand for directions. She enthusiastically instructed us to walk straight down the main road and take a left at the gas station. The brewery would be soon after that. Easy enough, but why hadn’t we already found the brewery ourselves? Turns out there are about 4 gas stations straight down the road, and none of them has an apparent left turn near-by. We walked for another hour, doing our best to figure out the instructions. Eventually, as we stared further down the road into the wilderness and back at the out-of-the-way track we had taken, we knew we were in the wrong place.

We flagged down the one and only person on the street, and asked him if he knew where the brewery was. As soon as he began his directions, we realized we had been mere meters away from the brewery earlier in the day. The Busalla brewery isn’t actually in Busalla, it’s just over the border in the neighboring town of Savignone!

In no time, we found the familiar sign for Savignone which we had turned back at earlier in the day. We rounded the corner behind it and came upon the welcoming sight of the brewery with picnic tables and umbrellas under the colorful sign of a woman dressed in 1920’s style party clothes admiring 3 tall glasses of beer. But wait, it was 4pm and the brewery was closed! A small sign on the front door informed us that it would open at 6pm. Now we had a big decision to make. Did we call it a day and return another time during open hours, or did we hang around Busalla for another few hours waiting for 6 o’clock? Our deprived taste buds won out, and we rested in the town park for awhile before returning to the Busalla Brewery at 6:00 on the dot.

The beer was worth the wait. They had four draughts on tap: Muller, Ambra, Rubin, and Castagnasca. Our favorites were Rubin a dark, mild tasting brew and Castagnasca, a blonde beer with the unusual flavor of chestnuts. Busalla Brewery also bottles its beer so we left with more than just the knowledge of how and when to go to the brewery, but also with a few bottles for later.

Every second weekend in May since 1952 throngs of Italians have gathered in the picturesque fishing village of Camogli to celebrate the life blood of the village, fish! The Sagra del Pesce festivities last all weekend, but the main events are Saturday night and Sunday morning.

Saturday Night
Just as night falls and giant globes of white lights strung up above the streets illuminate the village, the procession for San Fortuno, the patron saint of fisherman, begins. A brass band leads the way up and down the streets around the harbor as thousands of spectators watch the giant sarcophagus for San Fortuno pass by. At the end of the route the heavy float is precariously carried up the stairs to the Church of Santa Maria Assunta. When it reaches the top, the crowd cheers because the float has successfully reached its destination.

A couple hours pass and the crowd fills up on seafood, ice cream, and beer as they wait for the fireworks to begin. Spectators gather along the beachfront promenade where the fireworks will be set off just a few meters away. The fireworks bang and glow directly overhead reflecting colored lights off the tall houses lining the beach. The grand finale is unlike any fireworks display I’ve ever seen. A flaming arrow is shot at the the belltower of the Church of Santa Maria Assunta, which sits at one end of the beach. Sparks and flames shoot out of the belltower from all angles, and it lights a wire connected to a giant wooden cartoon character constructed on the beach below. The flame creeps down the wire, and with a little help from torches on the beach, the construction is engulfed in flames within minutes. The temperature on the promenade rises, and for a few moments it’s almost as bright as day. It doesn’t take long for the construction to burn to the ground, signaling the end evening and time to rest up for the main event tomorrow.

Sunday Morning
A giant padella, frying pan, has been set up on a stage above the harbor. This frying pan is said to be the largest in the world weighing 2900 kilograms with a diameter of 3.8 meters. The frying pan is filled with hot oil, and smaller baskets of whole fish are dunked and then dished out in paper bowls to the hungry crowd. The feast starts at 10am and lasts until everyone has been fed.

The process of queuing up to receive your own bowl of fried fish is a lesson in Italian culture at its truest form. The concept of a line simply does not exist in Italy. So rather than orderly lining up behind those who came first, Italians simply push and fight and wiggle their way forward from all angles trying to creep closer dishing out point. And of course, there’s food involved. The mouth watering scent of fried oil wafting through the air makes everyone’s efforts to bypass those around them all the more fervent. With so many people on hand, as soon as you pass through the periphery of the group, you no longer have control of your own movements and are at the will of the crowd around you, which contains a large number of stout, pushy old women who are bound and determine to get there before you.

Eventually we made it to the front of the crowd, thanks in most part to the momentum of the people behind us. There was a police officer controlling the flow of traffic at the entrance to the frying pan area. He stepped aside and let a few of us ascend the walkway to the frying pan, where we got a quick look inside, and were handed a still steaming bowl of fish. It was delicious, fresh ans simple with nothing more than the olive oil and a squirt of lemon for seasoning. And imagine this, by the time we finished our fish, the unruly crowd had transformed into an orderly line!

To see more our pictures from the Sagra del Pesce, click here.

Parmigiano-Reggiano is a salty, flavorful type of hard cheese that is produced in the area around Parma in Emilia Romagna. The cheese is made at dairies called caseificio. You can take a tour of a caseificio to see the cheese making process, and of course, sample the finished product. See below for a photo tour of our visit to C.P.L caseificio in Parma. To see captions, hover over the slideshow and click the quote symbol on the bottom left of the slideshow.

No matter where you travel, there are always going to be things that make the “must do” list and other things that are relegated to the “would have done if we had the time” list. When you visit Italy, make sure an acetaia falls into the first list. We recently traveled to Modena and had the pleasure of touring L’Acetaia di Giorgio, a small producer of “Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale di Modena” with Giovanna, the matriarch of the operation. She took us through every step of the balsamic vinegar making process with such detail, sincerity, and passion that it gave us a real sense of propriety for visiting such a place.

A true acetaia, or vinegar producer, is not a factory. In fact, it hardly resembles a business at all. Authentic acetaie are family owned homes with a few tidy rooms in the attic level where the vinegar is produced. They are recognized by the consortium of balsamic vinegar producers as the only TRUE producers of “Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale di Modena” and must follow a strict and carefully regulated process to make each batch of balsamic vinegar, the product that is, deservedly, referred to as oro nero (black gold).

Here are a couple highlights:
1) The aceto (vinegar) must be made with lambrusco and trebbiano grapes grown within a certain distance of Modena.
2) The aceto must be aged for at least 12 years to be certified and 25 years to be certified Extra Vecchio (Very Old). If you see a bottle of balsamic older than 25 years, be wary, the consortium that “approves” of balsamic is only 30 years old.
3) Your aceto will have been aged in at least 6 wood barrels of various sizes (perhaps more), some of which may be over 100 years old. These barrels age and condition the aceto to give it it’s distinct taste and character.
4) Each spring, the smallest barrel is refilled with the aceto from the next largest barrel until it is 2/3 full. This process is continued for each barrel and is necessary because each summer the sun’s heat evaporates about 1/3 of the barrel’s contents making what’s left thicker and more concentrated (and more delicious).
5) True balsamic should not be cooked or used in bulk (as on a salad) but should be enjoyed one drop at a time on fresh strawberries, vanilla gelato, parmigiano reggiano cheese slices, and tender cuts of meat such as filet mignon or bistecca fiorentina

To conclude the visit at L’Acetaia di Giorgio we were treated to a tasting of 4 different kinds of balsamic. The first was their 12 year old product, and the next three were 25 year old bottles. The first of the 25 year old variety was their regular product, aged in barrels of various types of wood. The final two were specially aged in either Juniper or Cherry wood barrels giving each a distinct, the first best suited for gamey meats, and the second made for desserts. There really aren’t words to describe the taste of true balsamic vinegar. Aged balsamic is both sweet and bitter, thick and syrupy but light on the palette, and because of the different woods used to age the product, I doubt any two taste exactly the same.

Lambrusco wine is native to the Emilia Romagna area. It’s a sparkling red wine made from Lambrusco grapes. Sparkling red may sound a little strange, but trust me, it’s delicious. A pleasant pink foam forms at the top of your glass as you pour, then quickly dissipates leaving only traces of tiny bubbles hugging the edges. The fizz is just enough to liven and refreshen the wine as it hits your mouth.There are two varieties of Lambrusco: amabile (sweet) and secco (dry). If you’re a little hesitant about the idea of a sparkling red, try the amabile. You wouldn’t even know it’s wine if it weren’t for the bottle and the ruby red color. There’s just enough sweetness to offset the taste of any alcohol, with a mild, juicy flavor. The secco variety is a bit more substantial with a dry but fruity flavor. They say you can drink Lambrusco with anything, so drink up!

With so much culinary inspiration around us, like the seasonal fruits and vegetables on display in the markets and the dishes prepared on the cooking show “Prova del Cuoco,” along with an excellent resident chef, we’ve decided to start a new section of our blog for recipes.

The recipes can be found in the Recipes tab above. Or just click here.