My Kind of Food

The Trebbia flows into the great River Po not far from Piacenza and was, in 1799, the site of one of Napoleon’s battles.  A little before then, in December 218BC to be precise, there was another Battle of Trebbia when Hannibal (with his elephants) and the forces of Carthage, fought the Romans in the second Punic War.

The river itself meanders through the Colli Piacentini (the Piacenza Hills) and the area features a number of small, pretty, villages, some with Castles, such as the Castello Rivalta, belonging to the family of the Dukes of Parma and Piacenza.  The family still lives in this imposing building and in 1993 it played host to their friend, HRH The Princess Margaret, sister of the Queen Elizabeth II.

To the question ‘how do you eat an elephant?’, one can answer, ‘bit by bit’ (poco a poco is to my mind at the heart of the Italian philosophy of life). So it was that after a ‘bit’ of tourism by visiting the castle, the other day, it came time for a ‘bit’ of lunch.  By happy coincidence Antica Trattoria Giovanelli, in the Borgo of Sarturano di Agazzano, was just a short car ride away.

I’d heard of this restaurant (which has been going since 1937) many years ago from a colleague who used to visit Piacenza on a regular basis and loved eating there.  When I came to live in Italy three years ago I was particularly happy to be taken there for the first time and even happier to return a couple of days ago.

Naturally, a good restaurant should serve good food and deliver good service (to say the least) but a really good restaurant adds a secret ingredient to that mix – a sense of well-being and contentment that comes from eating good food in a comfortable and convivial setting.  Giovanelli delivers this in spades!  As well as the food, about which more in a moment, it was wonderful to chat amiably with the family about mutual friends and English regional accents and to discuss, in immense detail, not only what food we wanted to order but how we wanted it served.  That doesn’t happen very often in fine-dining establishments!

And so to the food.  First and foremost this a restuarant which serves local specialities, that is, dishes that are traditional in the Piacenza area of Emilia Romagna.

We were three people for lunch and decided to share the antipasto and pasta courses and choose our own mains.  The anti-pasto was a generous plate of cured meats (salumi) with a few sweet pickled onions and cold frittata.  This selection was delicious, consisting of pancetta, coppa, salami and 36 month old culaccia. The healthy-food facists might condemn all of this stuff as ‘processed food’ and therefore evil but for me it’s processed, not only with salt but with love and dedication and is heavenly!  In this case its all matured in the cellars of the restaurant and much of it made following the recipes handed down from grand parents.

We ordered two pasta dishes to share among the three of us.  Piserei e faso, are little dumplings (tiny gnocchi, the size of peas) made with flour and bread crumbs, served with a sauce of white beans and tomato.  It is a typical dish of Emilia Romagna and was soft, comforting and warming on a cold day.  Secondly and beyond description in its loveliness, was Toretelli di erbette e ricotta al sugo di porcini.  Now the porcini season is all but finished and for that reason I hesitated for a moment before ordering it.  In fact the porcini used had been dried, a way of preserving these rich tasting mushrooms that preserves their deep, complex and meaty flavour.  The top chefs of the world try, and sometimes succeed, in producing an element on a dish which they might call a foam or an air, that delivers an intense flavour and then almost as quickly vanishes in the mouth.  In this case the tortelli, stuffed with fresh ricotta and herbs were so soft and thin that when you put them in the mouth there was the briefest sensation of a bubble bursting, followed by an intense flavour rush  and the after taste of that slowly braised porcini  mushroom ragu.  Wow! Amazing!

Next up was one of my favourite birds, Faraona al Forno (roasted Guinea Fowl).  I love them so much because they remind me of the taste of chicken when I was a boy – not the bland taste of today’s intensively farmed varieties but something with flavour! In the finest traditions of the Italian kitchens the meat dish was just that, meat, nothing else.  We opted, in discussion with the waiter, to add a sauce of sweet peppers and Mostarda di Cremona, a northern Italian accompaniment to meat or cheese, made from large chunks of candied fruit in a mustard flavoured syrup.  It’s something I’m coming to appreciate the value of more and more as these Italian years roll by but despite its popularity I generally prefer the English style chutneys and other tracklements.  In this case though, the mostarda, made by  Ditta Augusto Fieschi which has been in operation since 1867, was very good.  The guinea fowl itself was perfectly cooked with a crispy brown skin and moist white flesh.

I’m not usually one for puddings but in this case I was determined to try something and chose a semi-freddo, crunchy with nuts.  As with everything else we’d eaten it was excellent but with hindsight I would have preferred to finish with a piece of Parmesan.

Another thing to note about Giovanelli is that it serves wine in ceramic bowls rather than glasses, following the tradition of the area.  It’s quirky and gives the wine a lot of air but  they will provide glasses for the timid!