Last year this time I was traveling through Emilia Romagna, after attending a small film festival near Rimini. I posted substacks about my wanderings and folks seemed to dig them— So, for my new readers(and anyone who can’t get enough Italy or food talk), here’s one of them..
In America ham and cheese is a sandwich. A lo-fi lunch bag staple, you find it cellophane-sealed in bus station vending machines or as your first meal should you land in county jail. It’s old school. The kind of grub a plumber pulls from his lunch pail and eats with dirty hands, then washes down with a thermos of coffee.
But in Parma Italy ham and cheese is not a sandwich, it’s an identity. Parma IS ham and cheese. It’s a way of life, an organizing principal. BUT they are not eaten together, at least not as a sandwich. I found this out the hard way when I went to the famed Salumeria Garibaldi, and was schooled in proper ham and cheese etiquette, Parma style.
The schooling was done by Nick, the main man behind the counter. Nick’s about thirty-five and ready for his guest spot on the Sopranos. He speaks excellent English with a Brooklyn attitude, though not accent.
Nick pulls a haunch of cured pig leg off the shelf, brings it to his nose and sniffs it like it’s Sophia Loren’s panties. “This is aged thirty-six months. The best! You want it?” “I want it” I answer, though “Yes sir, prosciutto sergeant, sir” would be more appropriate. He slices with conviction and control, then tosses us a couple of shavings to wet our whistles (I’m with my new pal Rory. A damn fine English actor/writer and an even better dude. We met at the film festival, and now he’s got a few free days, so, he met me in Parma before he heads to Rome for a writer’s gathering where he will also play center-midfield in the English writers versus Italian writers futbol game).
Nick’s puts back the ham, giving it another giddy whiff, then grabs a chunk of cappocolo, and back to the fire engine red slicer. He’s got a classic Parma lunch in mind and I am not going to get in his way. The “coppa” now sliced, he throws in some mortadella and salame di Parma, which he cuts thick with a knife, and is a nice counterpoint in taste, texture and chew. He puts the salame back in the case. Then he turns and glares at us like it’s the stare down of a championship fight. He only has one word for us. “Culatello.”
Maybe you know about it, maybe you don’t. It comes only from the province of Parma, and is made by curing the rear muscle of the haunch of pigs born, raised and butchered in Lombardy and Emilia Romanga. (I’m surprised they don’t have to be baptized there and play for the local soccer club as well.) Culatello is an egg shaped, roughly six and a half-pound hunk of fat and flavor. More delicate and cured for less time than proscuitto, it has a buttery texture and blissful taste. Nick sermonizes on the glories of it as he cuts. This is it, his secret weapon. The trick he keeps up his pork sleeve that makes the audience gasp.
Now, it’s onto the cheese part of the program and I make my first (and last) big mistake. I ask for bufala mozzarella. Nick looks me like I just called his grandmother a whore. “You want mozzarella, go to Napoli. This is Parma. You eat Parmesan or nothing!”
He grabs a big knife, then cuts to two large half-inch wedges off a forty-month-old wheel. “No bread with the cheese!” he says, pointing the knife at my chest from across the counter. Do you think I said, “Okay?” or “Fuck off, Nick!”?
“How about bread with the ham?” I ask cautiously. He pauses. “Bread with the ham okay. I’ll give you some Gnocco Fritto.” Gnocco Fritto are deep fried, puffy bread squares, and they are ubiquitous in Parma (A plate of fat streaked ham is not decadent enough for these lunatics, they need to fry bread in lard to go with it!).
Rory and I are having a blast, and have embraced our roles as Nick’s two food submissives. “Is it okay to get some roast peppers?” I ask, ready for him to shame me for my antipasto impudence. “Peppers okay,” he nods, giving me his papal blessing.
In America, the customer is always right. In Parma, the customer is a poor fool who must be protected from himself. “If you’re going to spend time here, do it right.” That’s Nick’s subtext, and though he’s giving me some real attitude, he does it with a wink, and the passion you’d expect from a true Salumi wizard.
We walk out with a massive “to go” tray of charcuterie. Between the dead pig and the plastic, our carbon footprint is as big Shaquille O’Neal’s Nikes. We take it all up to my hotel room and get to work. The cheese is like a flavor bomb. Salt and soul with a touch of sandy grit. It of course has nothing to do with grated Parmesan, and is more like eating delicious Italian masonry. Now, we crack open the big tray of cold cuts if such a crude term can be applied to such elevated food art. The tray is probably 30x16 inches, everything enjoying its own space. We each take a slice of culatello and put in out mouth. All we can do is laugh.
Although Tommy may seem like a full-time chef - and many readers believe he is - he isn't. He is primarily a fine writer, whose thoughts on food and travel are always interspersed with some verbal gem or other, such as this one: "In America, the customer is always right. In Parma, the customer is a poor fool who must be protected from himself." I must go now and book a flight to Parma!
Delectable food porn. What can I say, I’m an addict.